Schwab Begins Posting MNAVs
Schwab Funds began posting daily "shadow" NAVs last week, becoming the 12th money fund manager to disclose daily market NAVs (or MNAVs). (We added their 4-digit prices to our MFI Daily starting last Friday.) Their webpage, "Schwab Money Market Funds Daily Mark-to-Market Values," explains, "At Schwab, we are committed to providing our clients with information that helps them to better understand their investments in the Schwab Money Market Funds. Along with other major money fund sponsors, we are now disclosing the Mark-to-Market Values of our domestic money funds on a daily basis. We view this as a positive step toward providing additional transparency into how the Schwab Money Market Funds are managed. It's important however to keep these few key points in mind: Disclosing the Mark-to-Market Value is for informational purposes only. It should not be confused with a "Floating Net Asset Value (NAV)", which means that investors would buy and sell at something other than a fixed or constant NAV. As always, the Schwab Money Market Funds continue to seek to maintain and transact at a stable $1.00 per share NAV. Certain factors can cause a money fund's Mark-to-Market Value to fluctuate slightly above or below $1.0000, such as interest rate changes, market and credit conditions and the constant flow of assets into and out of the fund. What's important to remember is that a fund's Mark-to-Market Value can have daily fluctuations, even during very stable market environments. As the investment adviser for the Schwab Money Market Funds, Charles Schwab Investment Management (CSIM) continues to utilize a rigorous and disciplined investment approach that prioritizes safety, high credit quality, strong liquidity and diversification across issuers over yield."
