The April issue of our flagship Money Fund Intelligence newsletter, which was sent to subscribers Thursday morning, features the articles: "Ultra-Short Buckets Ready: Bond Fund Symposium '21," which highlights comments from our recent online event; "BNY Mellon Liquidity Direct's George Maganas on Portals," which profiles one of the largest and oldest online money fund trading portals; and, "Worldwide MFs Rise in Q4'20 Led by China, Ireland, France," which reviews global MMF asset flows. We also sent out our MFI XLS spreadsheet Thursday a.m. (MFI, MFI XLS and our Crane Index products are all available to subscribers via our Content center.) Our April Money Fund Portfolio Holdings are scheduled to ship on Monday, April 12, and our April Bond Fund Intelligence is scheduled to go out Thursday, April 15.
MFI's lead article says, "We recently hosted Crane's Bond Fund Symposium, an online event focusing on the ultra-short bond fund space. Given the zero rate environment and the potential for more regulations in cash, interest in the sector remains high as ultra-shorts are once again seen as a possible alternative to Prime MMFs. We quote from some of the highlights below. (Attendees and Subscribers may access the recordings and materials via our Bond Fund Symposium 2021 Download Center.)"
It explains, "Our Bond Fund Intelligence shows Ultra-Short Bond Funds up 20.3% (vs. 7.4% for all bond funds) in the year through 2/28/21, the fastest growth of any bond fund category. While Ultra-Short and our tighter Conservative Ultra-Short Bond Fund group together still only account for $201.4 billion of the $3.22 trillion of assets tracked by Crane Data, they should continue to grow briskly. (Short-Term is another $359.0 billion.)"
Our latest "Profile" reads, "This month, MFI interviews BNY Mellon Managing Director and Head of Liquidity Services, George Maganas, who is in charge of the firm's money market fund trading 'portal,' Liquidity Direct. Maganas reviews the history of one of the industry's largest and oldest portals, and BNY's main priorities and biggest challenges going forward. He also discusses the current portal marketplace and how they're working to make 'clients' workflow more efficient.' Our Q&A follows."
MFI says, "Give us a little history about the platform and about yourself." Maganas tells us, "Liquidity Direct was established as an innovator in the money market fund space over 20 years ago. From the start, our focus was on providing efficiencies for our clients, and for their liquidity management and investment processes. We continue to innovate and provide superior performance for our clients globally."
He continues, "Beyond Liquidity Direct, BNY Mellon's affiliate Dreyfus has been in the money fund manufacturing and distribution business for over 50 years, and we really believe that depth and breadth of experience is evident in our product offering. When you combine the manufacturing, asset servicing and distribution capabilities across our investment management business, the Bank platform and Pershing, you can really see that BNYM is a significant participant that plays a critical role in the money fund industry."
Maganus adds, "Personally, I've been involved with Liquidity Direct for the past three years, leading our business development activities. Prior to that, I've been in global markets for over 25 years in various roles, from running electronic trading to operating other platform businesses, such as leading an FCM. Prior to this role, my experience with money market funds has been primarily as an end user at an FCM."
The "Worldwide" article tells readers, "The Investment Company Institute published, 'Worldwide Regulated Open-Fund Assets and Flows, Fourth Quarter 2020,' which shows that money fund assets globally rose by $246.3 billion, or 3.1%, in Q4'20 to $8.314 trillion. The increase was driven by big jumps in Chinese, Irish and French money market fund assets, though U.S. MMFs declined. MMF assets worldwide increased by $1.689 trillion, or 25.5%, in the 12 months through 12/31/20, and money funds in the U.S. now represent 52.1% of worldwide assets."
ICI explains, "The growth rate … in US dollars was increased by US dollar depreciation over the fourth quarter of 2020.... Bond fund assets increased by 6.8% to $13.05 trillion in the fourth quarter.... Money market fund assets increased by 3.1% globally to $8.31 trillion.... Money market fund assets represented 13% of the worldwide total."
MFI also includes the News piece, "MMF Assets Surge Break $4.9T." It says, "Crane Data's MFI XLS shows MMFs up $151.0 billion to $4.934 trillion in March. ICI's latest weekly 'Money Market Fund Assets' series shows MMFs up in 7 of the past 8 weeks. (They fell hard on April 2 though.) MMFs are up $200 billion, or 4.7%, year-to-date in 2021."
An additional News brief, "Comments Hit SEC; Due April 14," tells us, "Comments continue to appear in response to the Securities & Exchange Commission's announcement, 'SEC Requests Comment on Potential Money Market Funds Reform Options Highlighted in President's Working Group Report.'"
Our April MFI XLS, with March 31 data, shows total assets jumped $151.0 billion in March to $4.934 trillion, after rising $30.8 billion in February and $5.6 billion in January. Assets decreased $6.7 billion in December, $11.7 billion in November, $46.8 billion in October, $121.2 billion in September, $42.3 billion in August, $44.2 billion in July and $113.0 billion in June. Assets increased $31.6 billion in May and $417.9 billion in April. Our broad Crane Money Fund Average 7-Day Yield was unchanged at 0.02%, our Crane 100 Money Fund Index (the 100 largest taxable funds) also remained flat at 0.02%.
On a Gross Yield Basis (7-Day) (before expenses are taken out), the Crane MFA and the Crane 100 both stand at 0.12%. Charged Expenses averaged 0.10% for the Crane MFA and 0.10% for the Crane 100. (We'll revise expenses on Friday once we upload the SEC's Form N-MFP data for 3/31.) The average WAM (weighted average maturity) for the Crane MFA and Crane 100 was 42 (down one day from the previous month) and 44 days (down two days) respectively. (See our Crane Index or craneindexes.xlsx history file for more on our averages.)
