ICI: MMF Assets Flat at $5.57 Trillion
The Investment Company Institute's latest "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows MMF assets flat in the latest week after hitting record levels for 5 weeks in a row. ICI's asset series remain just below their record $5.570 trillion level, after breaking above $5.5 trillion three weeks ago, and shows MMFs up a hair below $1.0 trillion, or 21.9%, over the past year. Assets are up by $834 billion, or 17.6%, year-to-date in 2023 (and up $748.4 billion, or 15.5%, since 2/22/23), with Institutional MMFs up $427 billion, or 14.0% and Retail MMFs up $407 billion, or 24.3%. Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets have risen $999 billion, or 21.9%, with Retail MMFs rising by $596 billion (40.0%) and Inst MMFs rising by $403 billion (13.1%). Their weekly release says, "Total money market fund assets decreased by $1.09 billion to $5.57 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, August 23, the Investment Company Institute reported.... Among taxable money market funds, government funds decreased by $5.24 billion and prime funds increased by $4.41 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $265 million." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs falling $10.2 billion but Retail MMFs rising $9.1 billion in the latest week. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $4.581 trillion (82.3% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $874.3 billion (15.7%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $113.3 billion (2.0%). ICI explains, "Assets of retail money market funds increased by $9.09 billion to $2.08 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets increased by $2.96 billion to $1.38 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $6.46 billion to $603.05 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $325 million to $102.47 billion." Retail assets account for over a third of total assets, or 37.4%, and Government Retail assets make up 66.2% of all Retail MMFs. They add, "Assets of institutional money market funds decreased by $10.19 billion to $3.48 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $8.20 billion to $3.20 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $2.05 billion to $271.22 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $60 million to $10.85 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 62.6% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 91.9% 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 $5.967 trillion on Tuesday, 8/15, before easing back to $5.953 trillion Wednesday. Assets have risen by $72.6 billion in August through 8/23 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.
