MMF Assets Fall 10th Week in a Row
Money market fund assets fell yet again in the latest week, their tenth decline in a row and 18th decline over the past 20 weeks. Assets have fallen $426 billion since May 20, when assets were at a record $4.789 trillion. ICI's latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report says, "Total money market fund assets decreased by $19.06 billion to $4.36 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, October 14.... Among taxable money market funds, government funds decreased by $13.43 billion and prime funds decreased by $4.93 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $697 million." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs falling $19.8 billion and Retail MMFs increasing $743 million. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $3.651 trillion (83.7% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $598.6 billion (13.7%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $113.4 billion (2.6%). (Note that ICI's asset totals don't include a number of funds tracked by the SEC and Crane Data.) ICI shows money fund assets up a still massive $731 billion, or 20.1%, year-to-date in 2020, with Inst MMFs up $573 billion (25.3%) and Retail MMFs up $159 billion (11.6%). Over the past 52 weeks, ICI's money fund asset series has increased by $895 billion, or 25.8%, with Retail MMFs rising by $197 billion (14.8%) and Inst MMFs rising by $698 billion (32.7%). (Crane Data's separate and broader Money Fund Intelligence Daily data series shows total MF assets are down $39.5 billion in October (as of 10/14) to $4.738 trillion.) They explain, "Assets of retail money market funds increased by $743 million to $1.53 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets increased by $2.67 billion to $1.12 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $1.23 billion to $303.38 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $692 million to $102.28 billion." Retail assets account for just over a third of total assets, or 35.0%, and Government Retail assets make up 73.5% of all Retail MMFs. ICI adds, "Assets of institutional money market funds decreased by $19.80 billion to $2.83 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $16.10 billion to $2.53 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $3.69 billion to $295.20 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $5 million to $11.09 billion." Institutional assets, which broke below the $3.0 trillion level for the first time since April 22 at the end of August, accounted for 65.0% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 89.2% of all Institutional MMF totals.
