Money Fund Assets Plunge in Mid-Jan.
ICI's latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows assets falling sharply again in the latest week, their third straight week of declines which brings the drop to $88.5 billion. This followed 8 straight weeks of gains at year end where assets rose by $150.6 billion. Year-to-date, MMFs are down by $89 billion, or -1.9%. Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets have increased by $312 billion, or 7.2%, with Retail MMFs falling by $55 billion (-3.6%) and Inst MMFs rising by $367 billion (13.2%). ICI's release says, "Total money market fund assets decreased by $57.93 billion to $4.62 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, January 19, the Investment Company Institute reported.... Among taxable money market funds, government funds decreased by $55.12 billion and prime funds decreased by $1.97 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $839 million." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs decreasing $60.0 billion and Retail MMFs decreasing $6.9 billion in the latest week. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $4.088 trillion (88.6% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $441.0 billion (9.6%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $87.4 billion (1.9%). ICI explains, "Assets of retail money market funds decreased by $6.94 billion to $1.48 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $5.20 billion to $1.19 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $815 million to $203.57 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $917 million to $77.40 billion." Retail assets account for just under a third of total assets, or 32.0%, and Government Retail assets make up 81.0% of all Retail MMFs. They add, "Assets of institutional money market funds decreased by $50.99 billion to $3.14 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $49.91 billion to $2.89 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $1.16 billion to $237.39 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $77 million to $9.97 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 68.0% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 92.1% 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.)
