Money Fund Yields Break 1.0%
Following the Federal Reserve's interest rate increase last week, money market yields have risen by about 7 basis points. Yields should continue higher over the next month as funds digest the remainder of the Fed's 25 basis point move. As of yesterday, the first batch of the highest-yielding funds broke above 1.0% for the first time in almost 10 years. (See our Highest-Yielding Money Funds table above.) The top-yielding Prime Retail money funds, with data as of March 20, include: Fidelity Inv MM: MM Port Inst (FNSXX) at 1.02%, BlackRock Money Market Port Inst (PNIXX) at 0.96%, JPMorgan Liquid Assets Capit (CJLXX) at 0.96%, Federated Prime Cash Oblig WS (PCOXX) at 0.91%, and Vanguard Prime MMF Adm (VMRXX) at 0.86%. The highest-yielding Prime Institutional money funds include: Morgan Stanley Inst Liq MMP Inst (MPUXX) at 1.00%, JPMorgan Prime MM Capital (CJPXX) at 0.97%, UBS Select Prime Money Mkt Pref (SPPXX) at 0.97%, Fidelity Inv MM: Prime MMP Inst (FIPXX) at 0.96%, and BlackRock Lq TempFund In (TMPXX) at 0.95%. (Note that we've excluded repeating share classes and private or internal money funds from this ranking. See our latest Money Fund Intelligence Daily for the latest full rankings.) Our Crane 100 Money Fund Index, the average of the 100 largest taxable money funds, now stands at 0.57%, up 0.07% from a week ago, while our Crane Money Fund Average, which include all 663 taxable MMFs tracked by Crane Data, has risen from 0.31% to 0.37% in the 7 days through March 20. Watch for these both to continue higher over the coming weeks and to stabilize around 0.75% and 0.55%, respectively, once they've digested the entire Fed hike in a month or two.
