ICI's latest "Trends in Mutual Fund Investing, July 2013" shows money fund assets increased by $26.8 billion in July, after decreasing $16.9 billion in June and rising $28.3 billion in May. Money funds assets fell in all of the first four months of 2013 too (down $24.5 billion in April, $57.6 billion in March, $31.7 billion in February, and $9.1 billion in January). YTD through 7/31, ICI shows money fund assets down by $81.2 billion, or 3.0%. The Institute's bond fund totals showed asset declines moderating, down just $6.4 billion, after bond fund assets declined by a record $143.1 billion in June. (Note that assets include gains and losses and differ from "flows".) ICI also released its latest "Month-End Portfolio Holdings of Taxable Money Funds," which confirmed a rebound in repo and a jump in Treasury and CP holdings. (See Crane Data's August 12 News, "Latest Portfolio Holdings Show Jump in Treasuries, CP, Repo Rebound.") Money fund assets are up strongly in July though. Month-to-date in August, our MFI Daily shows recent asset gains continuing; assets have risen by $31.1 billion, or 1.3%, through 8/28.
ICI's July "Trends" says, "The combined assets of the nation's mutual funds increased by $422.3 billion, or 3.1 percent, to $14.064 trillion in July, according to the Investment Company Institute's official survey of the mutual fund industry. In the survey, mutual fund companies report actual assets, sales, and redemptions to ICI.... Bond funds had an outflow of $16.70 billion in July, compared with an outflow of $59.94 billion in June."
It adds, "Money market funds had an inflow of $26.64 billion in July, compared with an outflow of $17.12 billion in June. Funds offered primarily to institutions had an inflow of $30.46 billion. Funds offered primarily to individuals had an outflow of $4.82 billion." ICI's "Liquid Assets of Stock Mutual Funds" rose from a near record low at 3.7% to 3.9%, showing stock funds hold thin but growing buckets of cash.
The ICI's most recent "Money Market Mutual Fund" weekly report shows money fund assets rising for the 4th week in a row. It says, "Total money market mutual fund assets increased by $6.46 billion to $2.644 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, August 28, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Taxable government funds increased by $1.60 billion, taxable non-government funds increased by $6.93 billion, and tax-exempt funds decreased by $2.08 billion." Year-to-date, ICI's weekly series shows assets down by $61 billion, or 2.2%, through Aug. 28.
ICI's Portfolio Holdings for July 2013 show that Repos rebounded by $32.0 billion, or 7.0% (after a quarter-end $65.6 billion plunge in June) to $490.9 billion (20.9% of assets). The increase in repos, which traditionally rebound after quarter-ends, put them back into first place among segments of taxable money fund portfolio holdings (behind CDs). Holdings of Certificates of Deposits, now the 2nd largest position, dropped by $11.3 billion (the second month in a row) to $471.7 billion (20.1%). Treasury Bills & Securities, the third largest segment, increased by $7.1 billion to $464.9 billion (19.8%).
Commercial Paper, which jumped by $18.9 billion, or 5.2%, remained the fourth largest segment ahead of U.S. Government Agency Securities; CP holdings totaled $382.3 billion (16.3% of assets). Agencies fell by $6.5 billion to $345.0 billion (14.7% of taxable assets). Notes (including Corporate and Bank) rose by $5.3 billion to $97.7 billion (4.2% of assets), and Other holdings fell by $6.0 billion to $84.0 billion (3.6%).
The Number of Accounts Outstanding in ICI's Holdings series for taxable money funds decreased by 38,331 to 24.616 million, while the Number of Funds fell by 4 to 389. The Average Maturity of Portfolios shortened by one day to 49 days in July after rising one day in June and remaining flat the 4 previous months. Over the past year, WAMs of Taxable money funds have lengthened by 4 days.
Note that Crane Data publishes daily asset totals via our Money Fund Intelligence Daily and monthly asset totals via our Money Fund Intelligence XLS. ICI publishes a weekly "Money Market Mutual Fund Assets" summary, as well as the above-referenced monthly asset totals. Each data set and time series contains slight differences among the tracked universes of money market mutual funds. Crane also publishes monthly Money Fund Portfolio Holdings and calculates a monthly Portfolio Composition totals from these (we recently updated our August MFI XLS to reflect the 7/31 composition data and maturity breakouts), while ICI collects a separate monthly Composition series.
