MF Assets Lower Third Straight Week
ICI's latest "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows assets falling slightly for the third week in a row after two weeks of big increases. Their release says, "Total money market fund assets decreased by $6.76 billion to $4.52 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, October 20, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Among taxable money market funds, government funds decreased by $3.02 billion and prime funds decreased by $3.43 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $309 million." Money fund assets are up by $221 billion, or 5.1%, year-to-date in 2021. Inst MMFs are up $311 billion (11.2%), while Retail MMFs are down $90 billion (-5.9%). ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs decreasing $7.2 billion and Retail MMFs increasing $0.4 billion in the latest week. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $3.974 trillion (88.0% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $455.7 billion (10.1%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $88.5 billion (2.0%). Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets have increased by $162 billion, or 3.7%, with Retail MMFs falling by $95 billion (-6.2%) and Inst MMFs rising by $258 billion (9.1%). (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 increased by $390 million to $1.44 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets increased by $1.69 billion to $1.15 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $820 million to $211.70 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $479 million to $77.94 billion." Retail assets account for just under a third of total assets, or 31.8%, and Government Retail assets make up 79.8% of all Retail MMFs. They add, "Assets of institutional money market funds decreased by $7.15 billion to $3.08 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $4.71 billion to $2.83 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $2.61 billion to $243.97 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $170 million to $10.51 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 68.2% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 91.7% of all Institutional MMF totals.
