Assets Rise for Fourth Straight Week
The Investment Company Institute's latest "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows MMF assets hitting record levels for the fourth week in a row following a brief pause in mid-June and July. ICI's asset series broke the $5.5 trillion level for the first time ever last week, and shows MMFs up almost $1.0 trillion, and over 20%, over the past year. Assets are up by $795 billion, or 16.8%, year-to-date in 2023 (and up $709.8 billion, or 14.7%, since 2/22/23), with Institutional MMFs up $413 billion, or 13.5% and Retail MMFs up $382 billion, or 22.8%. Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets have risen $963 billion, or 21.1%, with Retail MMFs rising by $583 billion (39.4%) and Inst MMFs rising by $380 billion (12.3%). Their weekly release says, "Total money market fund assets increased by $14.37 billion to $5.53 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, August 9, the Investment Company Institute reported.... Among taxable money market funds, government funds increased by $4.30 billion and prime funds increased by $7.76 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds increased by $2.31 billion." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs rising $5.2 billion and Retail MMFs jumping $9.2 billion in the latest week. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $4.549 trillion (82.3% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $864.8 billion (15.6%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $116.3 billion (2.1%). ICI explains, "Assets of retail money market funds increased by $9.15 billion to $2.06 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets increased by $663 million to $1.37 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $6.52 billion to $589.76 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $1.97 billion to $105.02 billion." Retail assets account for over a third of total assets, or 37.3%, and Government Retail assets make up 66.3% of all Retail MMFs. They add, "Assets of institutional money market funds increased by $5.22 billion to $3.47 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets increased by $3.64 billion to $3.18 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $1.24 billion to $275.01 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $341 million to $11.26 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 62.7% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 91.8% of all Institutional MMF totals. (According to Crane Data's separate Money Fund Intelligence Daily series, money fund assets broke the $5.9 trillion level on August 1 and hit a record $5.933 trillion on 8/8, before easing back to $5.923 trillion yesterday. Assets have risen by $42.5 billion in August through 8/9 after rising by $34.7 billion in July. 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.)
