MMFs' 2022 Asset Slide Continues
The Investment Company Institute's latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows assets falling sharply for the third week in a row and for the 6th time in the past 7 weeks. Year-to-date, MMFs are down by $155 billion, or -3.3%. Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets have increased by $217 billion, or 5.0%, with Retail MMFs falling by $47 billion (-3.1%) and Inst MMFs rising by $263 billion (9.4%). ICI's weekly release says, "Total money market fund assets decreased by $43.52 billion to $4.55 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, February 16, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Among taxable money market funds, government funds decreased by $39.91 billion and prime funds decreased by $4.07 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds increased by $454 million." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs decreasing $43.5 billion and Retail MMFs decreasing $2.9 billion in the latest week. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $4.028 trillion (88.5% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $435.1 billion (9.6%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $86.7 billion (1.9%). ICI explains, "Assets of retail money market funds decreased by $2.89 billion to $1.47 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $2.25 billion to $1.20 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $560 million to $200.43 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $83 million to $76.49 billion." Retail assets account for just under a third of total assets, or 32.4%, and Government Retail assets make up 81.2% of all Retail MMFs. They add, "Assets of institutional money market funds decreased by $40.63 billion to $3.08 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $37.66 billion to $2.83 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $3.51 billion to $234.70 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $536 million to $10.23 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 67.6% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 92.0% 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.)
