Crane Data's latest monthly Money Fund Portfolio Holdings statistics will be sent out Tuesday, and we'll be writing our regular monthly update on the April 30 data for Wednesday's News. But we also uploaded a separate and broader Portfolio Holdings data set based on the SEC's Form N-MFP filings on Monday. (We continue to merge the two series, and the N-MFP version is now available via Holding file listings to Money Fund Wisdom subscribers.) Our new N-MFP summary, with data as of April 30, includes holdings information from 999 money funds (down 1 fund from last month), representing assets of $5.028 trillion (down from $5.089 trillion). Prime MMFs now total $834.8 billion, or 16.6% of the total. We review the new N-MFP data, and we also look at our revised MMF expense data, which shows charged expenses moving higher again as fee waivers continued to shrink in April, below.
Our latest Form N-MFP Summary for All Funds (taxable and tax-exempt) shows Repurchase Agreement (Repo) holdings in money market funds inched lower to $2.369 trillion (down from $2.377 trillion), or 47.1% of all assets. Treasury holdings totaled $1.674 trillion (down from $1.766 trillion), or 33.3% of all holdings, and Government Agency securities totaled $402.6 billion (down from $403.4 billion), or 8.0%. Holdings of Treasuries, Government agencies and Repo (almost all of which is backed by Treasuries and agencies) combined total $4.446 trillion, or a massive 88.4% of all holdings.
Commercial paper (CP) totals $231.0 billion (down from $232.2 billion), or 4.6% of all holdings, and the Other category (primarily Time Deposits) totals $158.4 billion (up from $130.1 billion), or 3.1%. Certificates of Deposit (CDs) total $116.1 billion (down from $108.8 billion), 2.3%, and VRDNs account for $76.6 billion (up from $71.5 billion last month), or 1.5% of money fund securities.
Broken out into the SEC's more detailed categories, the CP totals were comprised of: $151.5 billion, or 3.0%, in Financial Company Commercial Paper; $30.5 billion or 0.6%, in Asset Backed Commercial Paper; and, $49.0 billion, or 1.0%, in Non-Financial Company Commercial Paper. The Repo totals were made up of: U.S. Treasury Repo ($2.015 trillion, or 40.1%), U.S. Govt Agency Repo ($304.4B, or 6.1%) and Other Repo ($49.6B, or 1.0%).
The N-MFP Holdings summary for the Prime Money Market Funds shows: CP holdings of $228.4 billion (down from $227.4 billion), or 27.2%; Repo holdings of $234.8 billion (down from $269.1 billion), or 28.1%; Treasury holdings of $88.4 billion (down from $102.3 billion), or 10.6%; CD holdings of $116.1 billion (up from $108.8 billion), or 13.9%; Other (primarily Time Deposits) holdings of $115.5 billion (up from $87.8 billion), or 13.8%; Government Agency holdings of $42.9 billion (down from $43.0 billion), or 5.1% and VRDN holdings of $9.7 billion (up from $11.0 billion), or 1.2%.
The SEC's more detailed categories show CP in Prime MMFs made up of: $151.5 billion (down from $154.2 billion), or 18.1%, in Financial Company Commercial Paper; $30.5 billion (down from $31.6 billion), or 3.7%, in Asset Backed Commercial Paper; and $45.4 billion (up from $42.7 billion), or 5.0%, in Non-Financial Company Commercial Paper. The Repo totals include: U.S. Treasury Repo ($169.3 billion, or 20.3%), U.S. Govt Agency Repo ($16.5 billion, or 2.0%), and Other Repo ($49.0 billion, or 5.9%).
In related news, money fund charged expense ratios (Exp%) rose again in April (after surging in March) to 0.29% from 0.26% the prior month. Charged expenses hit a record low of 0.06% in May 2021 but remained at 0.07% for most the second half of 2021. Our Crane 100 Money Fund Index and Crane Money Fund Average were 0.22% and 0.29%, respectively, as of April 30, 2022. Crane Data revises its monthly expense data and gross yield information after the SEC updates its latest Form N-MFP data the morning of the 6th business day of the new month. (They posted this info Monday morning, so we revised our monthly MFI XLS spreadsheet and historical craneindexes.xlsx averages file to reflect the latest expenses, gross yields, portfolio composition and maturity breakout yesterday.) Visit our "Content" page for the latest files.
Our Crane 100 Money Fund Index, a simple average of the 100 largest taxable money funds, shows an average charged expense ratio of 0.22%, 2 basis points higher than last month's level (and 16 bps higher than May's record low 0.06%). The average is still down from 0.27% on Dec. 31, 2019, so we estimate that funds are now waiving just 5 bps, or 18.5% of normally charged expenses. The Crane Money Fund Average, a simple average of all taxable MMFs, showed a charged expense ratio of 0.29% as of April 30, 2022, 3 bps higher than the month prior but still down from 0.40% at year-end 2019.
Prime Inst MFs expense ratios (annualized) average 0.27% (up 2 bps from last month), Government Inst MFs expenses average 0.22% (up 1 bp from previous month), Treasury Inst MFs expenses average 0.27% (up 3 bps from last month). Treasury Retail MFs expenses currently sit at 0.38%, (up 8 bps from last month), Government Retail MFs expenses yield 0.33% (up 4 bps from last month). Prime Retail MF expenses averaged 0.39% (up 4 bps). Tax-exempt expenses were flat at 0.34% on average.
Gross 7-day yields rose again during the month ended April 30, 2022 (after jumping on the first Fed hike in March). (Yields should jump even more this month too in reaction to the Fed's 50 bps move last week.) The Crane Money Fund Average, which includes all taxable funds tracked by Crane Data (currently 744), shows a 7-day gross yield of 0.44%, up 8 bps from the prior month. The Crane Money Fund Average is down from 1.72% at the end of 2019 and up from 0.15% the end of 2020. Our Crane 100's 7-day gross yield was up 7 bps, ending the month at 0.43%.
According to our revised MFI XLS and Crane Index numbers, we now estimate that annualized revenue for all money funds is approximately $10.984B billion (as of 4/30/22). Our estimated annualized revenue totals increased from $10.331B last month and from $5.858B two months ago, and they are now more than triple May's record low $2.927B level. Annualized MMF revenues have now surpassed the $10.642 billion level at the end of 2019 (and are approaching their record $11.996 level from April 2020). Charged expenses and gross yields are driven by a number of variables, but revenues should continue rising in coming months as the Federal Reserve continues raising interest rates.
