ICI: Money Fund Assets Slide Into '22
ICI's latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows assets falling sharply in the latest week, after inching lower last week. This followed 8 straight weeks of gains at year end where assets rose by $150.6 billion. Year-to-date, MMFs are down by $31 billion, or -0.7%. Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets have increased by $361 billion, or 8.4%, with Retail MMFs falling by $52 billion (-3.4%) and Inst MMFs rising by $413 billion (14.9%). ICI's release says, "Total money market fund assets decreased by $28.11 billion to $4.67 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, January 12, the Investment Company Institute reported.... Among taxable money market funds, government funds decreased by $25.69 billion and prime funds decreased by $1.98 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $437 million." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs decreasing $24.6 billion and Retail MMFs decreasing $3.5 billion in the latest week. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $4.143 trillion (88.6% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $442.9 billion (9.5%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $88.2 billion (1.9%). ICI explains, "Assets of retail money market funds decreased by $3.48 billion to $1.48 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $2.55 billion to $1.20 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $1.28 billion to $204.39 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $357 million to $78.32 billion." Retail assets account for just under a third of total assets, or 31.7%, and Government Retail assets make up 80.9% of all Retail MMFs. They add, "Assets of institutional money market funds decreased by $24.64 billion to $3.19 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $23.14 billion to $2.94 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $699 million to $238.55 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $794 million to $9.89 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 68.3% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 92.2% 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.)
