ICI: Money Fund Asset Surge Ends
The Investment Company Institute released its latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report Thursday, which shows MMFs decreasing in the latest week, following last week's surge. The week following quarter-end and including the long Holiday weekend marks just the 2nd decrease in the last 9 weeks. Money fund assets are up $187 billion, or 4.4%, year-to-date in 2021. Inst MMFs are up $226 billion (8.1%), while Retail MMFs are down $38 billion (-2.5%). Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets have increased by $11 billion, or 0.3%, with Retail MMFs falling by $51 billion (-3.5%) and Inst MMFs rising by $62 billion (2.6%). We review the latest asset totals below. ICI's "Assets" release says, "Total money market fund assets decreased by $12.64 billion to $4.48 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, April 7.... Among taxable money market funds, government funds decreased by $13.81 billion and prime funds increased by $1.04 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds increased by $126 million." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs decreasing $7.6 billion and Retail MMFs decreasing $5.1 billion. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $3.873 trillion (86.4% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $512.2 billion (11.4%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $99.4 billion (2.2%). (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 $5.09 billion to $1.49 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $3.10 billion to $1.15 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $1.80 billion to $250.17 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $194 million to $88.07 billion." Retail assets account for just over a third of total assets, or 33.2%, and Government Retail assets make up 77.3% of all Retail MMFs. ICI adds, "Assets of institutional money market funds decreased by $7.56 billion to $3.00 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $10.71 billion to $2.72 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $2.84 billion to $261.99 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $319 million to $11.37 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 66.8% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 90.9% of all Institutional MMF totals.
