Bloomberg writes "U.S. Money Funds Slashed Loans to French Banks by 97% in 2011". The article says, "U.S. money-market funds reduced their lending to French banks by 97 percent in 2011, according to an analysis of reports from the eight largest U.S. funds published in today's Bloomberg Risk newsletter. The funds owned $2.3 billion of French bank certificates of deposit, time deposits, commercial paper and repurchase agreements in December, a drop of 58 percent from the previous month and down from $82 billion at the end of 2010. The funds shifted investments to Japanese, American and Swiss banks, with increases of between 10 percent and 15 percent." Bloomberg quotes JPMorgan Securities' Alex Roever, "For now I don't think we're likely to see money market investors in the U.S. moving money back into the euro zone. However, the data we’re seeing is suggesting that maybe the market’s willing to take a pause here." The piece explains, "The funds surveyed were Fidelity Cash Reserves, JPMorgan Prime Money Market Fund, Vanguard Prime Money Market Fund, Fidelity Institutional Prime Money Market Portfolio, BlackRock TempFund, Wells Fargo Advantage Heritage Money Markets Fund and Federated Prime Obligations Fund. They manage about $594 billion in total."
