MMF Assets Lower for Second Week
The Investment Company Institute's latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows assets falling for the second week in a row after 4 straight weeks of gains in July. Year-to-date, MMFs are down by $138 billion, or -2.9%, with Institutional MMFs down $146 billion, or -4.5% and Retail MMFs up $9 billion, or 0.6%. Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets are up by $58 billion, or 1.3%, with Retail MMFs rising by $51 billion (3.6%) and Inst MMFs rising by $7 billion (0.2%). (For the month of August, MMF assets increased by $28.0 billion to $5.025 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 $8.01 billion to $4.57 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, August 10, the Investment Company Institute reported.... Among taxable money market funds, government funds decreased by $17.81 billion and prime funds increased by $9.83 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $31 million." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs decreasing $10.7 billion and Retail MMFs increasing $2.7 billion in the latest week. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $3.990 trillion (87.4% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $480.8 billion (10.5%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $96.7 billion (2.1%). ICI explains, "Assets of retail money market funds increased by $2.70 billion to $1.48 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $4.21 billion to $1.14 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $6.65 billion to $254.00 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $261 million to $87.35 billion." Retail assets account for just under a third of total assets, or 32.3%, and Government Retail assets make up 76.9% of all Retail MMFs. They add, "Assets of institutional money market funds decreased by $10.71 billion to $3.09 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $13.60 billion to $2.85 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $3.18 billion to $226.78 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $292 million to $9.33 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 67.7% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 92.4% 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.)
