Money Fund Assets Down Again
ICI's latest "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows assets falling for the second week in a row after two-weeks of increases. The release says, "Total money market fund assets decreased by $5.95 billion to $4.52 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, October 13, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Among taxable money market funds, government funds decreased by $2.64 billion and prime funds decreased by $2.86 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $453 million." Money fund assets are up by $227 billion, or 5.3%, year-to-date in 2021. Inst MMFs are up $318 billion (11.5%), while Retail MMFs are down $90 billion (-5.9%). ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs decreasing $5.6 billion and Retail MMFs decreasing $0.3 billion in the latest week. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $3.977 trillion (87.% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $459.1 billion (10.1%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $88.8 billion (2.0%). Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets have increased by $161 billion, or 3.7%, with Retail MMFs falling by $93 billion (-6.1%) and Inst MMFs rising by $255 billion (9.0%). (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 Crane's asset series.) ICI explains, "Assets of retail money market funds decreased by $320 million to $1.44 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets increased by $485 million to $1.14 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $726 million to $212.52 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $79 million to $78.41 billion." Retail assets account for just under a third of total assets, or 31.7%, and Government Retail assets make up 79.7% of all Retail MMFs. They add, "Assets of institutional money market funds decreased by $5.63 billion to $3.09 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $3.12 billion to $2.83 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $2.14 billion to $246.59 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $374 million to $10.34 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 68.3% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 91.7% of all Institutional MMF totals.
