Assets Jump for 5th Week in a Row
The Investment Company Institute released its latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report, which shows money fund assets rising for the 5th week in a row and for the 8th time in the past 10 weeks. Money fund assets are up $95 billion, or 2.2%, year-to-date in 2021. Inst MMFs up $109 billion (3.9%), while Retail MMFs are down $14 billion (-0.9%). Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets have increased by $615 billion, or 16.3%, with Retail MMFs rising by $79 billion (5.5%) and Inst MMFs rising by $536 billion (22.8%). ICI's "Assets" release says, "Total money market fund assets increased by $29.69 billion to $4.39 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, March 10.... Among taxable money market funds, government funds increased by $33.27 billion and prime funds decreased by $3.90 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $330 million." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs increasing $26.2 billion and Retail MMFs increasing $3.5 billion. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $3.768 trillion (85.8% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $522.6 billion (11.9%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $101.7 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 increased by $3.52 billion to $1.51 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets increased by $6.11 billion to $1.16 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $2.06 billion to $257.37 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $528 million to $89.85 billion." Retail assets account for just over a third of total assets, or 34.4%, and Government Retail assets make up 77.0% of all Retail MMFs. ICI adds, "Assets of institutional money market funds increased by $26.17 billion to $2.88 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets increased by $27.15 billion to $2.60 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $1.84 billion to $265.25 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $858 million to $11.87 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 65.6% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 90.4% of all Institutional MMF totals.
