MF Assets Increase; First Since May
ICI's latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows MMFs rebounding after six weeks of declines. The release says, "Total money market fund assets1 increased by $7.16 billion to $4.49 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, July 21, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Among taxable money market funds, government funds increased by $9.22 billion and prime funds decreased by $1.09 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $970 million." Money fund assets are up by $190 billion, or 4.4%, year-to-date in 2021. Inst MMFs are up $288 billion (10.4%), while Retail MMFs are down $99 billion (-6.5%). ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs increasing $8.5 billion and Retail MMFs decreasing $1.3 billion in the latest week. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $3.914 trillion (87.2% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $480.0 billion (10.7%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $92.7 billion (2.1%). Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets have decreased by $102 billion, or -2.2%, with Retail MMFs falling by $114 billion (-7.4%) and Inst MMFs rising by $13 billion (0.4%). (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 $1.31 billion to $1.43 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets increased by $734 million to $1.12 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $1.56 billion to $225.55 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $482 million to $80.40 billion." Retail assets account for just under a third of total assets, or 31.8%, and Government Retail assets make up 78.6% of all Retail MMFs. ICI adds, "Assets of institutional money market funds increased by $8.47 billion to $3.06 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets increased by $8.48 billion to $2.79 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $473 million to $254.43 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $488 million to $12.33 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 68.2% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 91.3% of all Institutional MMF totals.
