Second Half Asset Slide Continues
ICI's weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows MMFs falling for the sixth week in a row, a decline of $132.3 billion since June 2. Their latest release says, "Total money market fund assets decreased by $30.99 billion to $4.48 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, July 14, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Among taxable money market funds, government funds decreased by $26.71 billion and prime funds decreased by $4.12 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $167 million." Money fund assets remain up by $183 billion, or 4.2%, year-to-date in 2021. Inst MMFs are up $280 billion (10.1%), while Retail MMFs are down $97 billion (-6.4%). ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs decreasing $25.9 billion and Retail MMFs decreasing $5.1 billion in the latest week. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $3.905 trillion (87.2% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $481.1 billion (10.8%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $93.7 billion (2.1%). Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets have decreased by $89 billion, or -1.9%, with Retail MMFs falling by $116 billion (-7.5%) and Inst MMFs rising by $27 billion (0.9%). (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.) ICI explains, "Assets of retail money market funds decreased by $5.05 billion to $1.43 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $3.36 billion to $1.12 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $1.51 billion to $227.12 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $179 million to $80.88 billion." Retail assets account for just under a third of total assets, or 31.9%, and Government Retail assets make up 78.4% of all Retail MMFs. ICI adds, "Assets of institutional money market funds decreased by $25.94 billion to $3.05 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $23.35 billion to $2.78 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $2.60 billion to $253.96 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $13 million to $12.81 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 68.1% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 91.3% of all Institutional MMF totals.
