MMF Assets Fall Ahead of Tax Date
Money fund assets fell again in the latest week, their 6th decline in the past 7 weeks, though Prime assets increased again. The Investment Company Institute's latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows assets down by $153 billion, or -3.3%, year-to-date, with Institutional MMFs down $194 billion, or -6.0% and Retail MMFs up $41 billion, or 2.8%. Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets are up by $87 billion, or 2.0%, with Retail MMFs rising by $79 billion (5.5%) and Inst MMFs rising by $8 billion (0.3%). (For the month of Sept. through 9/15, MMF assets increased by $432 million to $5.025 trillion according to Crane's MFI XLS, which tracks a broader universe of funds than ICI. Crane Data's Prime asset total is currently $955.2 billion.) ICI's weekly release says, "Total money market fund assets decreased by $12.36 billion to $4.55 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, September 14, the Investment Company Institute reported.... Among taxable money market funds, government funds decreased by $13.28 billion and prime funds increased by $2.15 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $1.22 billion." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs decreasing $15.3 billion and Retail MMFs increasing $2.9 billion in the latest week. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $3.934 trillion (86.4% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $517.2 billion (11.4%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $101.1 billion (2.2%). ICI explains, "Assets of retail money market funds increased by $2.90 billion to $1.51 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $3.00 billion to $1.13 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $6.47 billion to $290.16 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $572 million to $90.83 billion." Retail assets account for just under a third of total assets, or 33.2%, and Government Retail assets make up 74.8% of all Retail MMFs. They add, "Assets of institutional money market funds decreased by $15.26 billion to $3.04 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $10.28 billion to $2.80 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $4.33 billion to $227.08 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $651 million to $10.28 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 66.8% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 92.2% 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.)
