Money Market News
The Investment Company Institute published its weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report Thursday, which shows money fund assets increasing by $7.8 billion to $7.811 trillion, after decreasing by $53.0 billion the previous week and rising by $38.7 billion to a record high $7.856 trillion two weeks prior. Assets have risen in 22 of the last 28 weeks and 30 of the past 37weeks. MMF assets are up by $779 billion, or 11.1%, over the past 52 weeks (through 4/1/26), with Institutional MMFs up $547 billion, or 13.2% and Retail MMFs up $232 billion, or 8.1%. Year-to-date in 2026, MMF assets are up by $78 billion, or 1.0%, with Institutional MMFs up $38 billion, or 0.8% and Retail MMFs up $39 billion, or 1.3%.
The Bank of England published a paper titled, "A simulation framework for sterling money market funds: estimating redemption capacity and evaluating liquidity requirements." The staff paper's summary says, "Money market funds (MMFs) aim to provide near-on-demand liquidity yet often hold assets that become hard to sell under stress, leaving them vulnerable to run-like redemptions. I build a simulation framework for sterling MMFs to estimate redemption capacity and failure probability across alternative redemption profiles and market-liquidity scenarios. Resilience of funds depends on both the timing of outflows and the effective liquidity of weekly liquid assets (WLA): front-loaded redemptions are most destabilising, and the benefit of asset sales shrinks as market depth thins. Removing the 30% WLA threshold effect – under which managers must consider measures to deter further redemptions – yields sizeable resilience gains by reducing cliff-edge behaviour. Under historically extreme shocks and without threshold effects, most resilience improvements come from holding WLA above the 30% regulatory minimum; in my simulations, gains concentrate around 40% WLA, with diminishing returns beyond."
The Investment Company Institute published, "Worldwide Regulated Open-Fund Assets and Flows, Fourth Quarter 2025," which shows that money fund assets globally rose by $534.7 billion, or 4.2%, in Q4'25 to a record $13.280 trillion. (The totals would have been $13.552 trillion if Australia and New Zealand had been included.) Increases were led by a sharp jump in money funds in the U.S. and China, while Ireland and Luxembourg also showed strong gains. Meanwhile, money funds in France were sharply lower. MMF assets worldwide increased by $1.681 trillion, or 14.5%, in the 12 months through 12/31/25, and money funds in the U.S. now represent 58.3% of worldwide assets. In Q1, European money fund asset totals surpassed Asian money fund totals for the first time since Q4'2017. The new Q4 data shows Asian money fund totals moving back above European money fund totals. We review the latest Worldwide MMF assets, below.
The Investment Company Institute published its monthly "Trends in Mutual Fund Investing - February 2026" and "Month-End Portfolio Holdings of Taxable Money Funds" on Tuesday. The latest "Trends" shows money fund totals increasing $59.9 billion, or 0.8%, in February to $7.789 trillion. MMFs increased by $805.6 billion, or 11.5%, over the past 12 months (through 2/28/26). Money funds' February asset increase follows a decrease of $17.3 billion in January, an increase of $170.2 billion in December, $107.7 billion in November, $146.8 billion in October, $104.5 billion in September, $123.4 billion in August, $69.0 billion in July, $29.3 billion in June and $84.7 billion in May. Assets decreased $63.8 billion in April and $10.9 billion in March. But they increased $99.0 billion last February. Bond fund assets increased $103.8 billion to $5.684 trillion, and bond ETF assets increased $91.6 billion to $2.393 trillion in February 2026.
Arca Capital Management filed a Form N-1A registration statement for Arca U.S. Treasury Money Market Digital Fund tells us, "Arca U.S. Treasury Money Market Digital Fund seeks to provide investors with as high a level of current income as is consistent with the preservation of shareholders' capital and liquidity. The Fund seeks to maintain a stable $1.00 net asset value (NAV) per share.... The Fund will invest, under normal circumstances, exclusively in U.S. dollar cash, U.S. Treasury bills, notes and bonds with 93 days or less to maturity, overnight repurchase agreements fully collateralized by U.S. Treasury securities, and registered money market funds that themselves invest solely in the foregoing assets." This will be the 6th manager to launch a Stablecoin Reserves money market fund, following BlackRock's Circle Treasury Reserves, and Stablecoin Reserves offerings from State Street, Goldman Sachs, BNY and Fidelity. (See our March 23 News, "Fidelity Files for Reserves Digital Fund, 5th Stablecoin Reserve MMF.")
The Investment Company Institute published a release entitled, "Mutual Fund and ETF Fees Remained Near Historic Lows in 2025," along with the report, "Trends in the Expenses and Fees of Funds, 2025." The full report tells us, "On an asset-weighted basis, average expense ratios incurred by mutual fund investors have fallen substantially over the past 29 years.... In 1996, equity mutual fund investors incurred expense ratios of 1.04 percent, on average, or $1.04 for every $100 in assets. By 2025, that average had fallen to 0.40 percent. Average expense ratios for hybrid and bond mutual funds, as well as money market funds, have also declined meaningfully since 1996."
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission published its latest monthly "Money Market Fund Statistics" summary, which shows that total money fund assets rose by $123.7 billion in February 2026 to a record high $8.341 trillion, after hitting $8.217 trillion the month prior. The SEC shows Prime MMFs increased $18.2 billion in February to $1.383 trillion, Govt & Treasury funds increased $104.5 billion to $6.808 trillion and Tax Exempt funds increased $1.0 billion to $150.1 billion. Taxable yields were lower again in February following declines in January. The SEC's Division of Investment Management summarizes monthly Form N-MFP data and includes asset totals and averages for yields, liquidity levels, WAMs, WALs, holdings, and other money market fund trends. We review their latest numbers below. (Our MFI XLS monthly shows money fund assets increasing $102.3 billion in February 2026 to a record of $8.258 trillion. In March month-to-date through 3/24, total money fund assets have decreased by $26.9 billion to $8.214 trillion, according to Crane Data's separate, and slightly smaller, MFI Daily series.)
A press release titled, "Invesco and Superstate Advance Institutional Tokenization Through USTB Partnership," tells us, "Invesco Ltd., a leading global asset management firm, and Superstate, the premier financial technology firm reshaping capital market infrastructure, ... announced a collaboration in which Invesco Advisers, Inc. will become investment manager of Superstate Short Duration US Government Securities Fund (USTB). USTB, Superstate's tokenized short-duration U.S. treasuries fund, will continue to be powered by Superstate's best-in-class tokenization technology. Through this collaboration, Invesco will become the first asset manager to utilize Superstate's digital transfer agent infrastructure."
Late last week, we hosted our latest Crane's Bond Fund Symposium in Boston. The keynote talk, "Ultra‐Short Bond Funds: Spring Break," featured J.P. Morgan Securities' Teresa Ho and PIMCO's Jerome Schneider. Schneider comments, "First of all, thanks for being here. Once again, it's obviously a great forum to see friends. And it's important, not just because of where we are today, and we can talk about the factors of where the economy is going and waking up every moment to see where rates are going, things like that. But I think importantly, from a logical point of view, what we do here is probably emphasized as calm amongst a storm of uncertainty ... for the broader landscape. So, my [role at] PIMCO is running short-term low duration strategies in addition to some of our portable alpha strategies.... From that vantage point, I think about the best way to optimize cash and ... shorter duration type of fixed income allocations." (Note: Thanks again to those who supported Bond Fund Symposium! Attendees and Crane Data subscribers may access the conference binder, Powerpoints and recordings via our "Bond Fund Symposium 2026 Download Center.")
Fidelity Investments is the 5th money fund manager to launch a Stablecoin Reserves money market fund, following BlackRock's Circle Treasury Reserves, and Stablecoin Reserves offerings from State Street, Goldman Sachs and BNY. A Form N-1A Registration Statement tells us, "Fidelity Reserves Digital Fund seeks to obtain as high a level of current income as is consistent with the preservation of capital and liquidity." (Note: Thank you to those who attended and supported our Bond Fund Symposium last week in Boston! Attendees and Crane Data subscribers may access the conference materials via our Bond Fund Symposium 2026 Download Center.)
The Federal Reserve released its latest quarterly "Z.1 Financial Accounts of the United States" statistical survey (a.k.a. "Flow of Funds") recently, and among the 4 tables it includes on money market mutual funds, the Fourth Quarter 2025 edition shows that Total MMF Assets increased by $416 billion to $8.190 trillion in Q4'25. The Household Sector, by far the largest investor segment with $5.321 trillion, saw the biggest asset increase in Q4, followed by Nonfinancial Corporate Business and Other Financial Business (formerly Funding Corps). The Fed's latest Z.1 numbers, which contain one of the few looks at money fund investor segments available, also showed noticeable increases for the Mutual Funds and Rest of the World categories in Q4 2025. (Note: Thank you to those who attended and supported our Bond Fund Symposium this week in Boston! Attendees and Crane Data subscribers may access the conference materials via our Bond Fund Symposium 2026 Download Center.)
Money market mutual fund assets jumped by $36.1 billion on Tuesday (March 17) to a record high of $8.276 trillion, according to our Money Fund Intelligence Daily. Assets have risen $34.6 billion in the week through Tuesday, and they've increased by $34.6 billion in March month-to-date (through 3/17). MMF assets increased by $99.5 billion in February, $32.9 billion in January, $126.3 billion in December, $132.8 billion in November, $142.1 billion in October, $105.2 billion in September and $132.0 billion in August. They rose by $63.7 billion in July, $6.7 billion in June and $100.9 billion in May. But MMFs decreased $24.4 billion in April and increased by $2.8 billion last March. (Note: For those attending our Bond Fund Symposium, which takes place March 19-20, welcome to Boston! Attendees and Crane Data subscribers may access the conference materials via our Bond Fund Symposium 2026 Download Center.
Archives »