MMF Assets Up 7th Week of Past 8
The Investment Company Institute released its latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report, which shows money fund assets rising for the 7th time in the past 8 weeks. Money fund assets are up $65 billion, or 1.8%, year-to-date in 2021. Inst MMFs up $83 billion (3.7%), while Retail MMFs down $18 billion (-1.3%). Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets have increased by $679 billion, or 19.3%, with Retail MMFs rising by $84 billion (6.3%) and Inst MMFs rising by $595 billion (27.4%). ICI's "Assets" release says, "Total money market fund assets increased by $18.55 billion to $4.36 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, March 3.... Among taxable money market funds, government funds increased by $21.39 billion and prime funds decreased by $2.32 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $521 million." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs increasing $24.1 billion and Retail MMFs decreasing $5.5 billion. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $3.735 trillion (85.6% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $526.5 billion (12.1%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $101.4 billion (2.3%). (Note that ICI's asset totals don't include a number of funds tracked by the SEC and Crane Data, so they're almost $400 billion lower than our asset series.) It explains, "Assets of retail money market funds decreased by $5.52 billion to $1.51 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $2.81 billion to $1.16 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $2.49 billion to $259.43 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $226 million to $90.38 billion." Retail assets account for just over a third of total assets, or 34.6%, and Government Retail assets make up 76.8% of all Retail MMFs. ICI adds, "Assets of institutional money market funds increased by $24.07 billion to $2.85 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets increased by $24.20 billion to $2.58 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $167 million to $267.09 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $295 million to $11.01 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 65.4% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 90.3% of all Institutional MMF totals.
