The Investment Company Institute released its latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report, as well as its latest monthly "Trends in Mutual Fund Investing" and "Month-End Portfolio Holdings of Taxable Money Funds" for January 2022 yesterday. The former shows assets inching higher following 3 weeks of steep declines, while the latter confirms a big drop in money fund assets in January. Year-to-date, MMFs are down by $150 billion, or -3.2%. Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets have increased by $211 billion, or 4.8%, with Retail MMFs falling by $36 billion (-2.4%) and Inst MMFs rising by $247 billion (8.7%).
ICI's weekly release says, "Total money market fund assets increased by $5.01 billion to $4.55 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, February 23, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Among taxable money market funds, government funds increased by $13.50 billion and prime funds decreased by $7.13 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $1.36 billion." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs increasing $2.1 billion and Retail MMFs increasing $3.0 billion in the latest week. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $4.041 trillion (88.7% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $428.0 billion (9.4%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $85.4 billion (1.9%).
ICI explains, "Assets of retail money market funds increased by $2.96 billion to $1.48 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets increased by $3.84 billion to $1.20 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $305 million to $200.13 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $579 million to $75.91 billion." Retail assets account for just under a third of total assets, or 32.4%, and Government Retail assets make up 81.3% of all Retail MMFs.
They add, "Assets of institutional money market funds increased by $2.05 billion to $3.08 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets increased by $9.66 billion to $2.84 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $6.82 billion to $227.87 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $782 million to $9.45 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 67.6% 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.)
ICI's monthly "Trends" report shows that money fund assets plunged $136.1 billion in January to $4.620 trillion. This follows increases of $136.1 billion in December (coincidentally the exact same size as January's decline), $65.5 billion in November, $11.1 billion in October, $6.4 billion in September and $25.5 in August. MMFs decreased $24.4 billion in July and $73.4 billion in June, but increased $78.6 billion in May, $31.9 billion in April, $129.4 billion in March and $39.4 billion in February. For the 12 months through Jan. 31, 2022, money fund assets increased by $291.5 billion, or 6.7%. (Month-to-date in February through 2/23, MMF assets have decreased by $45.0 billion to $4.961 trillion according to Crane's MFI Daily, which tracks a broader universe of funds.)
The monthly release states, "The combined assets of the nation's mutual funds decreased by $1.22 trillion, or 4.5 percent, to $25.74 trillion in January, according to the Investment Company Institute's official survey of the mutual fund industry. In the survey, mutual fund companies report actual assets, sales, and redemptions to ICI.... Bond funds had an outflow of $13.13 billion in January, compared with an outflow of $7.42 billion in December.... Money market funds had an outflow of $136.13 billion in January, compared with an inflow of $136.30 billion in December. In January funds offered primarily to institutions had an outflow of $137.22 billion and funds offered primarily to individuals had an inflow of $1.09 billion."
The Institute's latest statistics show that Taxable funds and Tax Exempt MMFs both saw losses last month. Taxable MMFs decreased by $135.5 billion in January to $4.533 trillion. Tax-Exempt MMFs decreased $0.6 billion to $86.2 billion. Taxable MMF assets increased year-over-year by $311.0 billion (7.4%), while Tax-Exempt funds fell by $19.5 billion over the past year (-18.4%). Bond fund assets decreased by $120.7 billion in January to a $5.504 trillion, but they rose by $221.7 billion (4.2%) over the past year.
Money funds represent 17.9% of all mutual fund assets (up 0.3% from the previous month), while bond funds account for 21.3%, according to ICI. The total number of money market funds was 305, unchanged from the prior month and down from 340 a year ago. Taxable money funds numbered 245 funds, and tax-exempt money funds numbered 60 funds.
ICI's "Month-End Portfolio Holdings" confirms a huge drop in Repo last month and a jump in CDs. Repurchase Agreements remained the largest composition segment in January, falling $200.2 billion, or -8.6%, to $2.127 trillion, or 46.9% of holdings. Repo holdings have increased $1.169 trillion, or 122.1%, over the past year. (See our Feb. 10 News, "Feb. MF Portfolio Holdings: Repo Drops, Time Deposits, Treasuries Jump.)
Treasury holdings in Taxable money funds rebounded last month and remained the second largest composition segment. Treasury holdings increased $15.2 billion, or 0.9%, to $1.709 trillion, or 37.7% of holdings. Treasury securities have decreased by $543.5 trillion, or -24.1%, over the past 12 months. U.S. Government Agency securities were the third largest segment; they decreased $7.3 billion, or -1.9%, to $371.6 billion, or 8.2% of holdings. Agency holdings have fallen by $244.6 billion, or -39.7%, over the past 12 months.
Certificates of Deposit (CDs) reclaimed fourth place; they increased by $67.4 billion, or 57.9%, to $183.9 billion (4.1% of assets). CDs held by money funds shrank by $5.1 billion, or -2.7%, over 12 months. Commercial Paper fell back to fifth place, but was up $8.6 billion, or 6.3%, to $145.3 billion (3.2% of assets). CP has decreased by $37.7 billion, or -20.6%, over one year. Other holdings decreased to $25.7 billion (0.6% of assets), while Notes (including Corporate and Bank) inched lower to $2.4 billion (0.1% of assets).
The Number of Accounts Outstanding in ICI's series for taxable money funds increased to 48.273 million, while the Number of Funds remained the same at 245. Over the past 12 months, the number of accounts rose by 6.716 million and the number of funds decreased by 20. The Average Maturity of Portfolios was 31 days, five days lower than December. Over the past 12 months, WAMs of Taxable money have decreased by 16.
