Money Fund Assets Surge at Year End
ICI's latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows assets rising for the 7th week in a row and the 8th week out of the past 9. Over the past 7 weeks, money fund assets have increased by $111.6 billion, and over the past 9 weeks assets they are up $148.2 billion. Money fund assets are up by $369 billion, or 8.6%, YTD in 2021. (This follows a gain of $665.0 billion, or 18.3%, in 2020.) Inst MMFs are up $432 billion (15.6%), while Retail MMFs are down $64 billion (-4.2%). Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets have increased by $346 billion, or 8.0%, with Retail MMFs falling by $62 billion (-4.1%) and Inst MMFs rising by $408 billion (14.6%). ICI's release says, "Total money market fund assets increased by $30.07 billion to $4.67 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, December 22, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Among taxable money market funds, government funds increased by $28.39 billion and prime funds increased by $1.61 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds increased by $62 million." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs increasing $12.7 billion and Retail MMFs increasing $17.4 billion in the latest week. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were a record $4.137 trillion (88.7% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $442.5 billion (9.5%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $86.8 billion (1.9%). ICI explains, "Assets of retail money market funds increased by $17.35 billion to $1.46 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets increased by $16.69 billion to $1.18 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $423 million to $204.66 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $245 million to $77.24 billion." Retail assets account for just under a third of total assets, or 31.3%, and Government Retail assets make up 80.7% of all Retail MMFs. They add, "Assets of institutional money market funds increased by $12.71 billion to $3.20 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets increased by $11.71 billion to $2.96 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $1.19 billion to $237.87 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $183 million to $9.55 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 68.7% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 92.3% of all Institutional MMF totals. (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.)
