MF Assets Dip After Jumping in July
The Investment Company Institute's latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows assets falling in the past week after 4 straight weeks of gains in July. Year-to-date, MMFs are down by $129 billion, or -2.7%, with Institutional MMFs down $135 billion, or -4.2% and Retail MMFs up $6 billion, or 0.4%. Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets are up by $75 billion, or 1.7%, with Retail MMFs rising by $50 billion (3.5%) and Inst MMFs rising by $26 billion (0.8%). (For the month of July, MMF assets increased by $25.3 billion to $5.013 trillion according to Crane's MFI XLS, which tracks a broader universe of funds than ICI.) ICI's weekly release says, "Total money market fund assets decreased by $14.20 billion to $4.58 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, August 3, the Investment Company Institute reported.... Among taxable money market funds, government funds decreased by $17.69 billion and prime funds increased by $4.28 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $788 million." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs decreasing $12.0 billion and Retail MMFs decreasing $2.2 billion in the latest week. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $4.008 trillion (87.6% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $471.0 billion (10.3%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $96.7 billion (2.1%). ICI explains, "Assets of retail money market funds decreased by $2.21 billion to $1.47 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $5.92 billion to $1.14 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $4.60 billion to $247.35 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $891 million to $87.09 billion." Retail assets account for just under a third of total assets, or 32.2%, and Government Retail assets make up 77.3% of all Retail MMFs. They add, "Assets of institutional money market funds decreased by $11.98 billion to $3.10 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $11.77 billion to $2.87 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $323 million to $223.60 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $103 million to $9.62 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 67.8% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 92.5% 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 over $400 billion lower than Crane's asset series.)
