The Investment Company Institute released its latest weekly "Money Market Mutual Fund Assets" report and its latest monthly "Trends in Mutual Fund Investing, December 2014" yesterday. The former shows money fund assets dropping for the 4th week in a row, while the latter shows that total money fund assets increased by $81.4 billion in December, or 3%, to $2.762 trillion. Money market funds posted 5 straight months of asset gains to end the year, increasing by $21.6 billion in November, $19.2B in October, $22.7B in September, and $34.0 billion in August. But they have declined every week so far in 2015, down by $31 billion YTD, to $2.702 trillion. For calendar 2014, ICI's monthly series shows money fund assets were up (barely) by $7.9 billion, or 0.3%.
ICI's weekly says, "Total money market fund assets decreased by $2.54 billion to $2.70 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, January 28, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Among taxable money market funds, Treasury funds (including agency and repo) decreased by $6.98 billion and prime funds increased by $7.27 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $2.82 billion." Month-to-date in January (through 1/28), money fund assets have declined by $31 billion, or 1.1%.
It explains, "Assets of retail money market funds decreased by $5.13 billion to $902.88 billion. Among retail funds, Treasury money market fund assets decreased by $460 million to $197.75 billion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $2.72 billion to $515.89 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $1.95 billion to $189.23 billion. Assets of institutional money market funds increased by $2.60 billion to $1.80 trillion. Among institutional funds, Treasury money market fund assets decreased by $6.52 billion to $787.40 billion, prime money market fund assets increased by $9.99 billion to $939.53 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $870 million to $71.98 billion."
The Trends report says, "The combined assets of the nation's mutual funds decreased by $104.94 billion, or 0.7 percent, to $15.86 trillion in December, 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 $19.01 billion in December, compared with an inflow of $14.96 billion in November."
It adds, "Money market funds had an inflow of $81.43 billion in December, compared with an inflow of $21.65 billion in November. In December funds offered primarily to institutions had an inflow of $67.68 billion and funds offered primarily to individuals had an inflow of $13.75 billion." Money funds represent 17.2% of all mutual fund assets (up from 16.3% last month) while bond funds represent 21.8%.
ICI also released its latest "Month-End Portfolio Holdings of Taxable Money Funds," which show sizable increases in Repos, Treasuries, and Agencies, and a drop in CP and CDs in December. (See Crane Data's Jan. 13 News, "January Portfolio Holdings Show Spike in Fed Repo, Treasuries" on this topic too.) ICI's latest Portfolio Holdings summary shows that Repo holdings increased $124.6B, or 23.5%, to $654.9B, after increasing $17.9 billion last month. Repos represent 26.6% of taxable MMF holdings and jumped ahead of CDs as the largest segment. Holdings of CDs (including Eurodollar) decreased by $79.6 billion, or 12.8%, in December to $544.7 billion, after increasing $13.5B in November. CDs represent 22.1% of assets and fell to the second largest composition segment.
Treasury Bills & Securities, which increased by $50.7B, or 13.7%, remained the third largest segment. Treasury holdings totaled $419.2 billion (17.0% of assets). U.S. Government Agency Securities jumped into fourth place, increasing $36.7B, or 10.4%, in December to $390.3 billion (15.8% of assets). Commercial Paper dropped to the fourth largest segment, decreasing $21.3B, or 5.9%, to $338.0 billion. They represent 13.7% of assets. Notes (including Corporate and Bank) increased by $5.8 billion, or 7.9%, to $79.5 billion (3.2% of assets), and Other holdings (primarily Time Deposits) decreased by $45.2 billion to $38.9 billion.
The Number of Accounts Outstanding in ICI's Composition tables for taxable money funds decreased by 112.1 thousand to 23.474 million, while the Number of Funds remained the same at 365. Over the past 12 months, the number of accounts fell by 644.3 thousand and the number of funds declined by 17. The Average Maturity of Portfolios decreased by 2 days to 44 days in December. Over the past 12 months, WAMs of Taxable money funds have declined by 3 days. Note: Crane Data has updated its January MFI XLS to reflect the 12/31/14 composition data and maturity breakouts for our entire fund universe. (Visit our Content Center to access our archives and the latest version of MFI XLS.)
