Crane Data's latest monthly Money Fund Portfolio Holdings statistics will be sent out Monday, and we'll be writing our regular monthly update on the new February 29 data for Tuesday's News. But we also already uploaded a separate and broader Portfolio Holdings data set based on the SEC's Form N-MFP filings on Friday. (We continue to merge the two series, and the N-MFP version is now available via our Portfolio Holdings file listings to Money Fund Wisdom subscribers.) Our new N-MFP summary, with data as of Feb. 29, includes holdings information from 969 money funds (up 1 from last month), representing record assets of $6.546 trillion (up from $6.479 trillion). Prime MMFs now total $1.397 trillion, or 21.3% of the total. We review the new N-MFP data, and we also look at our revised MMF expense data, which shows charged expenses flat and money fund revenues seeing another jump in February. (Note: Please join us for our upcoming Bond Fund Symposium, which is March 25-26 in Philadelphia. We hope to see you in Philly!)
Our latest Form N-MFP Summary for All Funds (taxable and tax-exempt) shows Treasuries overtaking Repo as the largest type of portfolio holding in money market funds. Treasury holdings total $2.578 trillion (up from $2.377 billion), or 39.4% of all holdings, while Repurchase Agreement (Repo) holdings in money market funds now total $2.366 trillion (down from $2.497 trillion), or 36.1% of all assets. Government Agency securities total $743.5 billion (down from $750.2 billion), or 11.4%. Holdings of Treasuries, Government agencies and Repo (almost all of which is backed by Treasuries and agencies) combined total $5.687 trillion, or a massive 86.9% of all holdings.
Commercial paper (CP) totals $318.4 billion (down from $320.1 billion), or 4.9% of all holdings, and the Other category (primarily Time Deposits) totals $178.7 billion (up from $174.4 billion), or 2.7%. Certificates of Deposit (CDs) total $236.2 billion (up from $235.4 billion), 3.6%, and VRDNs account for $125.4 billion (down from $125.5 billion last month), or 1.9% of money fund securities.
Broken out into the SEC's more detailed categories, the CP totals were comprised of: $198.7 billion, or 3.0%, in Financial Company Commercial Paper; $76.6 billion or 1.2%, in Asset Backed Commercial Paper; and, $43.0 billion, or 0.7%, in Non-Financial Company Commercial Paper. The Repo totals were made up of: U.S. Treasury Repo ($1.574 trillion, or 24.0%), U.S. Govt Agency Repo ($711.0B, or 10.9%) and Other Repo ($80.4B, or 1.2%).
The N-MFP Holdings summary for the Prime Money Market Funds shows: CP holdings of $311.1 billion (down from $312.7 billion), or 22.3%; Repo holdings of $393.7 billion (down from $416.5 billion), or 28.2%; Treasury holdings of $227.4 billion (up from $177.9 billion), or 16.3%; CD holdings of $236.2 billion (up from $235.4 billion), or 16.9%; Other (primarily Time Deposits) holdings of $170.7 billion (up from $162.9 billion), or 12.2%; Government Agency holdings of $48.1 billion (up from $47.6 billion), or 3.4% and VRDN holdings of $9.6 billion (up from $8.9 billion), or 0.7%.
The SEC's more detailed categories show CP in Prime MMFs made up of: $198.7 billion (down from $199.2 billion), or 14.2%, in Financial Company Commercial Paper; $76.6 billion (up from $75.3 billion), or 5.5%, in Asset Backed Commercial Paper; and $35.8 billion (down from $38.2 billion), or 2.6%, in Non-Financial Company Commercial Paper. The Repo totals include: U.S. Treasury Repo ($209.3 billion, or 15.0%), U.S. Govt Agency Repo ($109.9 billion, or 7.9%), and Other Repo ($74.6 billion, or 5.3%).
In related news, money fund charged expense ratios (Exp%) were flat in February. Our Crane 100 Money Fund Index and Crane Money Fund Average were 0.26% and 0.37%, respectively, as of Feb. 29, 2024. Crane Data revises its monthly expense data and gross yield information after the SEC updates its latest Form N-MFP data the morning of the 6th business day of the new month. (They posted this info Friday morning, so we revised our monthly MFI XLS spreadsheet and historical craneindexes.xlsx averages file to reflect the latest expenses, gross yields, portfolio composition and maturity breakout, then.) Visit our "Content" page for the latest files.
Our Crane 100 Money Fund Index, a simple average of the 100 largest taxable money funds, shows an average charged expense ratio of 0.26%, unchanged from last month's level (but 18 bps higher than 12/31/21's 0.08%). The average is now back around the level (0.27%) it was on Dec. 31, 2019, so we estimate that funds are charging normal expenses (though they are waiving a minimal amount of fees for competitive purposes). The Crane Money Fund Average, a simple average of all taxable MMFs, showed a charged expense ratio of 0.37% as of Feb. 29, 2024, unchanged from the month prior and slightly below the 0.40% at year-end 2019.
Prime Inst MFs expense ratios (annualized) average 0.28% (down 1 bp from last month), Government Inst MFs expenses average 0.26% (down 1 bp from last month), Treasury Inst MFs expenses average 0.29% (unchanged from last month). Treasury Retail MFs expenses currently sit at 0.52%, (unchanged from last month), Government Retail MFs expenses yield 0.55% (up 1 bp from last month). Prime Retail MF expenses averaged 0.48% (unchanged from last month). Tax-exempt expenses were also unchanged at 0.40% on average.
Gross 7-day yields were lower during the month ended Feb. 29, 2024. The Crane Money Fund Average, which includes all taxable funds tracked by Crane Data (currently 758), shows a 7-day gross yield of 5.40%, down 2 bps from the prior month. The Crane Money Fund Average was 1.72% at the end of 2019, 0.15% at the end of 2020 and 0.09% at the end of 2021. Our Crane 100's 7-day gross yield was down 2 bps, ending the month at 5.41%.
According to our revised MFI XLS and Crane Index numbers, we now estimate that annualized revenue for all money funds is $17.070 billion (as of 2/29/24), a new all-time high. Our estimated annualized revenue totals increased from the previous record of $16.855B last month and $16.573B two months ago. Revenue levels are more than five times larger than May's 2021's record-low $2.927B level. Charged expenses and gross yields are driven by a number of variables, but revenues should continue their climb higher as money funds continue to see inflows to start the new year.
