MMF Assets Fall After Record Run
The Investment Company Institute published its latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report Thursday. ICI shows money market mutual fund assets falling after rising for the previous six weeks in a row (down $20.0 billion) to $6.304 trillion. Assets have risen in 17 of the last 22 weeks, increasing by $326.1 billion (or 5.5%) since April 24. MMF assets are up by $417 billion, or 8.8%, year-to-date in 2024 (through 9/18/24), with Institutional MMFs up $142 billion, or 4.6% and Retail MMFs up $275 billion, or 16.4%. Over the past 52 weeks, money funds have risen by $668 billion, or 11.8%, with Retail MMFs up by $442 billion (20.8%) and Inst MMFs rising by $226 billion (6.4%). ICI's weekly release says, "Total money market fund assets decreased by $20.02 billion to $6.30 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, September 18.... Among taxable money market funds, government funds decreased by $18.82 billion and prime funds decreased by $2.42 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds increased by $1.22 billion." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs falling $25.1 billion and Retail MMFs rising $5.1 billion in the latest week. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $5.129 trillion (81.4% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $1.046 trillion (16.6%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $128.5 billion (2.0%). ICI explains, "Assets of retail money market funds increased by $5.05 billion to $2.57 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets increased by $3.41 billion to $1.63 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $725 million to $819.56 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $915 million to $117.75 billion." Retail assets account for over a third of total assets, or 40.7%, and Government Retail assets make up 63.5% of all Retail MMFs. They add, "Assets of institutional money market funds decreased by $25.07 billion to $3.74 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $22.24 billion to $3.50 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $3.14 billion to $226.46 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $308 million to $10.77 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 59.3% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 93.7% of all institutional MMF totals. According to Crane Data's separate Money Fund Intelligence Daily series, money fund assets have risen by $20.0 billion in September (through 9/18) to $6.635 trillion. They hit a record $6.682 trillion on 9/5 but have fallen since. Assets rose by $109.7 billion in August, $16.6 billion in July, $15.7 billion in June and $91.4 billion in May, but they fell $15.8 billion in April and $68.8 billion in March. They rose $72.1 billion in February, $93.9 billion in January, $32.7 billion in December and $226.4 billion in November. MMF totals fell by $31.9 billion in October and they rose $93.9 billion last September. 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.
