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Money Market Mutual Fund Assets Break The $3 Trillion Barrier! Says ICI. It's official. ICI's latest weekly statistics show money fund assets jumping by $54.69 billion in the latest week (ended Nov. 7) to a record $3.001 trillion. Institutional assets, powered by the Oct. 31 Fed rate cut, surged $53.82 billion to a record $1.904 trillion. Retail assets increased by $867 million to $1.097 trillion. Money fund assets have skyrocketed $619 billion, or 26%, YTD in 2007, and have grown by a massive $728 billion, or 32%, over 52 weeks. MMFs are poised to post their best year ever, even as concerns linger over fractional holdings of esoteric asset-backed holdings. Two thousand and seven should easily finish with money funds' biggest increase in dollar terms in their 35 year history. Asset growth is even on track to beat 1998's 27.7% percentage gain and perhaps even 1984's 30.2% gain. We have to go back to 1981, when money funds rose by 144% (by $54 billion to $234 billion), to find faster growth in percentage terms. Money fund assets surpassed the $500 billion level in 1991, the $1 trillion level in 1997, and the $2 trillion level in 2001. That year (2001) had been the prior recordholder for largest annual asset increase ($440 billion) up until this year.
