Crane Data's latest Money Fund Market Share rankings show assets fell for most U.S. money fund complexes in March. Money fund assets overall fell by $52.4 billion, or -1.8% last month, and assets have also decreased by $52.4 billion, or -1.7%, over the past 3 months. They've increased by $219.2 billion, or 8.0%, over the past 12 months through March 31, 2018, but note that our asset totals have been inflated slightly by the addition of a number of funds (mainly in April 2017). The biggest losers in March were J.P. Morgan, whose MMFs fell by $24.5 billion, or -9.0%, BlackRock, whose MMFs fell by $20.0 billion, or -6.7%, and Schwab, whose MMFs fell by $9.2 billion, or -6.1%.
Wells Fargo, Dreyfus, Western, Northern and Deutsche also saw assets decrease in March, falling by $6.4B, $4.1B, $2.6B, $2.2B, and $2.2B, respectively. Increases among the 25 largest managers were seen by Goldman Sachs, Vanguard, Morgan Stanley, UBS and Federated. (Our domestic U.S. "Family" rankings are available in our MFI XLS product, our global rankings are available in our MFI International product. The combined "Family & Global Rankings" are available to Money Fund Wisdom subscribers.) We review these market share totals below, and we also look at money fund yields the past month, which continued higher in March.
Over the past year through March 31, 2018, Fidelity (up $63.4B, or 12.4%), BlackRock (up $41.1B, or 17.2%), Vanguard (up $26.7B, or 9.9%), T. Rowe Price (up $16.0B, or 98.7%), Federated (up $14.1B, or 7.6%), Columbia (up $13.7B, or 1356%) and Prudential (up $13.6B, or 2371%) were the largest gainers. These 1-year gainers were followed by Dreyfus (up $12.2B, or 7.7%), SSGA (up $12.0B, or 15.3%), Northern (up $11.2B, or 11.8%), Invesco (up $9.2B, or 17.0%) and Wells Fargo (up $8.8B, or 9.2%).
Vanguard, SSGA, Goldman, Franklin, UBS and Invesco had the largest money fund asset increases over the past 3 months, rising by $13.8B, $8.8B, $4.8B, $2.9B, $2.4B, and $1.9 respectively. The biggest decliners over 12 months include: Schwab (down $18.3B, or -11.3%), Western (down $8.6B, or -26.2%), J.P. Morgan (down $5.4B, or -2.1%), Morgan Stanley (down $2.6B, or -2.2%), and Franklin (down $1.9B, or -8.0%).
Our latest domestic U.S. Money Fund Family Rankings show that Fidelity Investments remains the largest money fund manager with $574.3 billion, or 19.3% of all assets. It was up $495 million in March, down $1.5 billion over 3 mos., and up $63.4B over 12 months. Vanguard moved into second with $296.4 billion, or 10.0% market share (up $3.2B, up $13.8B, and up $26.7B for the past 1-month, 3-mos. and 12-mos., respectively), while BlackRock fell to third with $279.3 billion, or 9.4% market share (down $20.0B, down $17.6B, and up $41.1B). JP Morgan ranked fourth with $248.9 billion, or 8.4% of assets (down $24.5B, down $4.5B, and down $5.4B for the past 1-month, 3-mos. and 12-mos., respectively), while Federated was ranked fifth with $200.4 billion, or 6.7% of assets (up $1.7B, down $726M, and up $14.1B).
Goldman Sachs moved up to sixth place with $184.4 billion, or 6.2% of assets (up $12.7B, up $4.8B, and up $7.7B), while Dreyfus fell to seventh place with $169.9 billion, or 5.7% (down $4.1B, down $12.6B, and up $12.2B). Schwab ($142.6B, or 4.8%) was in eighth place, followed by Morgan Stanley in ninth place ($114.9B, or 3.9%) and Northern in tenth place ($106.0B, or 3.6%).
The eleventh through twentieth largest U.S. money fund managers (in order) include: Wells Fargo ($104.3B, or 3.5%), SSgA ($90.3B, or 3.0%), Invesco ($63.6B, or 2.1%), First American ($50.0B, or 1.7%), UBS ($45.4B, or 1.5%), T Rowe Price ($32.3B, or 1.1%), DFA ($27.9B, or 0.9%), Deutsche ($24.5B, or 0.8%), Western ($24.1B, or 0.8%), and Franklin ($22.1B, or 0.7%). The 11th through 20th ranked managers are the same as last month, except Northern moved back ahead of Wells. Crane Data currently tracks 66 U.S. MMF managers, the same number as last month.
When European and "offshore" money fund assets -- those domiciled in places like Ireland, Luxembourg, and the Cayman Islands -- are included, the top 10 managers match the U.S. list, except BlackRock and JPMorgan moved ahead of Vanguard, and Goldman Sachs moves ahead of Federated. Our Global Money Fund Manager Rankings include the combined market share assets of our MFI XLS (domestic U.S.) and our MFI International ("offshore") products.
The largest Global money market fund families include: Fidelity ($583.3 billion), BlackRock ($416.5B), J.P. Morgan ($405.7B), Vanguard ($296.4B), and Goldman Sachs ($281.6B). Federated ($208.4B) was sixth and Dreyfus/BNY Mellon ($191.2B) was in seventh, followed by Morgan Stanley ($150.4B), Schwab ($142.6B), and Northern ($134.3B), which round out the top 10. These totals include "offshore" US Dollar money funds, as well as Euro and Pound Sterling (GBP) funds converted into US dollar totals.
The April issue of our Money Fund Intelligence and MFI XLS, with data as of 3/31/18, shows that yields were up again in March across all of our Crane Money Fund Indexes (except Tax Exempt). The Crane Money Fund Average, which includes all taxable funds covered by Crane Data (currently 764), was up 21 bps to 1.27% for the 7-Day Yield (annualized, net) Average, and the 30-Day Yield was up 13 bps to 1.16%. The MFA's Gross 7-Day Yield increased 21 bps to 1.71%, while the Gross 30-Day Yield was up 12 bps to 1.58%.
Our Crane 100 Money Fund Index shows an average 7-Day (Net) Yield of 1.47% (up 23 bps) and an average 30-Day Yield of 1.36% (up 15 bps). The Crane 100 shows a Gross 7-Day Yield of 1.75% (up 23 bps), and a Gross 30-Day Yield of 1.61% (up 14 bps). For the 12 month return through 3/31/18, our Crane MF Average returned 0.73% and our Crane 100 returned 0.92%. The total number of funds, including taxable and tax-exempt, was up 6 funds to 963. There are currently 764 taxable and 199 tax-exempt money funds.
Our Prime Institutional MF Index (7-day) yielded 1.52% (up 21 bps) as of March 31, while the Crane Govt Inst Index was 1.35% (up 23 bps) and the Treasury Inst Index was 1.36% (up 19 bps). Thus, the spread between Prime funds and Treasury funds is 16 basis points, up 2 bps from last month, while the spread between Prime funds and Govt funds is 17 basis points, down 3 bps from last month. The Crane Prime Retail Index yielded 1.33% (up 22 bps), while the Govt Retail Index yielded 0.97% (up 18 bps) and the Treasury Retail Index was 1.07% (up 20 bps). The Crane Tax Exempt MF Index yield rose in March to 0.95% (up 32 bps).
Gross 7-Day Yields for these indexes in March were: Prime Inst 1.89% (up 21 bps), Govt Inst 1.66% (up 23 bps), Treasury Inst 1.67% (up 20 bps), Prime Retail 1.87% (up 22 bps), Govt Retail 1.60% (up 18 bps), and Treasury Retail 1.65% (up 20 bps). The Crane Tax Exempt Index increased 32 basis points to 1.47%. The Crane 100 MF Index returned on average 0.11% for 1-month, 0.30% for 3-month, 0.30% for YTD, 0.92% for 1-year, 0.44% for 3-years (annualized), 0.27% for 5-years, and 0.32% for 10-years. (Contact us if you'd like to see our latest MFI XLS, Crane Indexes or Market Share report.)
