As we wrote in our Dec. 31 "Link of the Day", ICI's most recent monthly "Trends in Mutual Fund Investing: November 2009," show that money fund assets declined by $43.4 billion to $3.318 trillion in November. ICI also released its monthly "Month-End Portfolio Holdings of Taxable Money Market Funds" report, which shows continued declines in Government Agency Securities and Treasury Bills and another large increases in Repurchase Agreements.
ICI's monthly "Holdings" (available to subscribers only) shows that CDs, including Eurodollar CDs, remain taxable money funds' largest holding, but that they're now at 21.9% of taxable holdings, down $21.6 billion to $639.26 billion. Repurchase Agreements, or Repos, surged by $49.08 billion to $583.44 billion, and they now inch out Governments for the 2nd largest spot at 20.0%. Government agencies declined by $35.5 billion in November to $564.43 billion, or 19.4%.
Commercial Paper continues to represents the fourth-largest holding of taxable money funds (as of 11/30) at 17.7% ($514.84 billion). CP decreased by $7.30 billion in November. Treasury Bills and Securities dropped by $10.30 billion to $380.38 billion (13.1% of holdings), while Notes (both Corporate and Bank) ranked 6th with with 5.6% of the total ($163.18 billion). The final 2.3% of holdings were labelled "Other."
Year-to-date through November in 2009, CDs showed the largest increases (up $154.25 billion), followed by Repos (up $31.69 billion). The biggest declines in holdings were experienced by Treasuries (down $210.58 billion), U.S. Government Agency Securities (down $209.10 billion), Commercial Paper (down $114.38 billion) and Notes (down $70.09 billion). Much of these moves reflect the overall decline in taxable money fund assets (down $427.63 billion, or 12.8%, to $2.913 trillion, as well as a shift away from zero-yielding Treasury and Government money funds and into higher-paying Prime funds in 2009.
The ICI's monthly report also showed Average Maturities decreasing 3 days to 52, the number of funds falling by 4 to 484, and the number of taxable money fund accounts outstanding declining by over half a million to 30.56 million. See last week's "Link of the Day" below right and our pending January issue of Money Fund Intelligence for more on asset flows in 2009.
