Crane Data's latest Money Fund Intelligence Daily shows money market mutual fund assets again jumping to record levels on Monday (5/1), breaking the $5.7 trillion barrier for the first time ever. Assets increased by $45.1 billion on Monday to $5.711 trillion, after dipping by $21.2 billion on Friday, the last day of April (4/28). In April assets increased by $55.9 billion after skyrocketing by $357.1 billion in March, the 3rd largest monthly increase ever (behind the coronavirus lockdown panic months of March and April 2020). Year-to-date through 5/1, money fund assets have increased by $511.1 billion. With this year's modest tax-related outflows behind us and with the ongoing turmoil in the banking sector (and concerns over uninsured deposits), we expect to see the strong assets growth continue, though the looming debt ceiling limit could see a pause in the inflows for Treasury-related money funds. (Note: Please join us for Crane's Money Fund Symposium, which is June 21-23, 2023 in Atlanta, Ga. We hope to see you at our big show!)
In other news, a press release entitled, "ICD 2023 Client Survey Shows Companies Concerned About Counterparty Risk Before Bank Failures," tells us, "Even before the banking turmoil sparked by Silicon Valley Bank's failure, 80% of corporate treasury organizations responding to ICD's 2023 Client Survey said they were concerned about bank and other counterparty concentration risk. The annual survey from ICD, an independent portal provider of short-term investments, closed in February with 116 treasury organizations responding from the Americas, UK and Europe."
CEO Tory Hazard comments, "The vast majority of corporate treasury teams are risk averse and invest in money market funds to diversify their cash portfolios, maintain daily liquidity and earn a competitive yield.... Our clients are quite sophisticated and use all the tools available to them through ICD Portal to achieve their investment objectives."
The release explains, "Current or planned investments in bank Time Deposits from the Americas were down 31% from last year, indicating a move away from single counterparty risk. Most survey respondents (93%) from all regions said they planned on increasing or maintaining investments in money market funds this year, up 12% from 2022. New clients investing through ICD Portal increased 283% in the first quarter of 2023, compared to the same period last year, and the average daily balance of those client investments grew 27 times.... Following the FDIC's takeover of SVB, usage of ICD's exposure analytics tool, which provides transparency into counterparties, countries, sectors and more, spiked 15 times its normal usage."
It adds, "Among other highlights from ICD's 2023 Client Survey: 74% of Treasury organizations expect to maintain or increase cash balances in H1; 90% of Americas respondents indicated they are investing in US Government MMFs; 86% of UK/Europe respondents indicated they are investing in Short-Term LVNAV MMFs; 55% of Treasury organizations are currently engaged in or are planning a tech project; and, 23% of Treasury teams say they are implementing a treasury management system this year."
The full "ICD 2023 Client Survey" says, "ICD is an independent portal provider of money market funds and other short-term investments, exclusively serving the treasury industry. We service more than $4 trillion trades annually on ICD Portal for treasury organizations across 65 industries operating in 43 countries. Our annual ICD Client Survey takes the pulse of treasury professionals in the Americas, UK and Europe on trading, short-term investments and technology. This year, 116 treasury organizations participated in the survey, which closed in February."
When asked, "What is your average Earnings Credit Rate (ECR) today?" The results tell us, "44% answered 'Less than 3%'; 28% answered '3-4%'; 8% answered '4-4.5%'; zero answered 'Greater than 4.5%'; and 20% answered 'N/A'." When asked, "Is your treasury team concerned with bank and other counterparty concentration risk?" The survey finds, "7% answered 'Highly concerned'; 73% answered 'Moderately concerned'; and 20% answered 'Not concerned'."
Finally, Crane Data published its latest Weekly Money Fund Portfolio Holdings statistics Tuesday, which track a shifting subset of our monthly Portfolio Holdings collection. The most recent cut (with data as of April 28) includes Holdings information from 57 money funds (down 20 from a week ago), which totals $2.495 trillion (down from $2.814 trillion) of the $5.666 trillion in total money fund assets (or 44.0%) tracked by Crane Data. (Our Weekly MFPH are e-mail only and aren't available on the website. See our latest Monthly Money Fund Portfolio Holdings here.)
Our latest Weekly MFPH Composition summary again shows Government assets dominating the holdings list with Repurchase Agreements (Repo) totaling $1.423 trillion (down from $1.574 trillion a week ago), or 57.0%; Treasuries totaling $643.9 billion (down from $655.4 billion a week ago), or 25.8%, and Government Agency securities totaling $250.5 billion (down from $301.9 billion), or 10.0%. Commercial Paper (CP) totaled $55.4 billion (down from a week ago at $97.2 billion), or 2.2%. Certificates of Deposit (CDs) totaled $52.7 billion (down from $69.5 billion a week ago), or 2.1%. The Other category accounted for $48.3 billion or 1.9%, while VRDNs accounted for $21.9 billion, or 0.9%.
The Ten Largest Issuers in our Weekly Holdings product include: the Federal Reserve Bank of New York with $948.2 trillion (38.0%), the US Treasury with $643.9 billion (25.8% of total holdings), Federal Home Loan Bank with $205.7B (8.2%), Fixed Income Clearing Corp with $120.9B (4.8%), JP Morgan with $42.4B (1.7%), Federal Farm Credit Bank with $41.7B (1.7%), Goldman Sachs with $31.9B (1.3%), BNP Paribas with $30.0 (1.2%), Citi with $27.3B (1.1%) and RBC with $23.5B (0.9%).
The Ten Largest Funds tracked in our latest Weekly include: Goldman Sachs FS Govt ($267.9B), JPMorgan US Govt MM ($226.2B), Fidelity Inv MM: Govt Port ($164.6B), Morgan Stanley Inst Liq Govt ($154.9B), JPMorgan 100% US Treas MMkt ($132.9B), BlackRock Lq FedFund ($130.8B), Dreyfus Govt Cash Mgmt ($116.6B), Goldman Sachs FS Treas Instruments ($108.6B), BlackRock Lq Treas Tr ($100.0B) and Fidelity Inv MM: MM Port ($97.6B). (Let us know if you'd like to see our latest domestic U.S. and/or "offshore" Weekly Portfolio Holdings collection and summary.)
