The latest monthly "Trends in Mutual Fund Investing: October 2010" published by the Investment Company Institute show money market mutual fund assets inched lower in October while bond funds continued gaining. Bond fund assets, which have risen by $461.4 billion year-to-date, now total $2.668 trillion, just over $100 billion below money fund assets' $2.788 trillion. Money fund assets represent 24.2% of mutual funds' total $11.5 trillion, while bond funds represent 23.2%.
ICI's monthly report says, "Money market funds had an outflow of $11.16 billion in October, compared with an outflow of $32.33 billion in September. Funds offered primarily to institutions had an inflow of $64.1 million. Funds offered primarily to individuals had an outflow of $11.22 billion." (Note that money fund assets rose by $15.4 billion to $2.813 trillion according to ICI's latest weekly stats while bond funds lost $4.3 billion, the first weekly decline in bond assets in many months.)
A separate report, "ICI's Month-End Portfolio Holdings of Taxable Money Market Funds," shows that Certificates of Deposit (CDs) remain the largest position in money funds at 22.8%, or $562.6 billion, but Repurchase Agreements (Repos) ranked a close second with 22.3%, or $548.9. Repo holdings surged in October, rising $45.6 billion, or 9.1%, while almost every other category of holding showed declines.
U.S. Government Agency Securities remained the third largest holding of taxable money funds with 16.6%, or $410.0 billion, while Commercial Paper (CP) remained the fourth largest position at 15.7%, or $387.6 billion. `U.S. Treasury Bills and Other Treasury Securities accounted for 12.4% of holdings, or $306.5 billion. Notes, both Bank and Corporate, represented 6.4% of holdings, or $157.9 billion, while Other holdings represented 3.4%, or $83.2 billion.
The private ICI report also showed the Number of Funds remained unchanged at 450, while the Average Maturity of portfolios jumped to 48 days from 44 days the previous month. The Number of Accounts Outstanding fell to 27.89 million from 28.32 million.
