While the Federal Reserve appears committed to keeping rates flat for the foreseeable future, brokerages continue to tweak their sweep rates, with some cutting, and one hiking, yields over the past several weeks. Rates tracked by our Brokerage Sweep Intelligence report were unchanged in the latest week, but UBS cut rates on select tiers for the second time this month. UBS reduced the rate on assets under $250K from 0.30% to 0.25%, reduced the rate on assets under $500K (but over $250K) from 0.35% to 0.30%, and cut rates on assets under $2 million (but over $1 million) from 0.70% to 0.65% during the week ended May 17.
UBS cut rates on balances under $250K from 0.35% to 0.30% earlier this month, and E*Trade also cut rates on a number of its tiers. Meanwhile, Raymond James increased sweep rates on its tiers over $100K in mid-May. It is now paying 0.30% on bank balances under $100K, 0.40% (up from 0.30%) on balances under $250K, 0.60% (up from 0.50%) on balances under $500K, 0.70% (up from 0.60%) on balances under $1 million, 0.85% (up from 0.80%) on balances under $2.5M and 1.00% (up from 0.85%) on balances over $2.5M.
Our Crane Brokerage Sweep Index, an average of the 11 largest brokerage firms' "sweep" rates, is currently 0.24% for balances under $50K, 0.25% for balances under $100K, 0.31% for balances under $250K, 0.39% for balances under $500K, 0.44% for balances under $1 million, 0.63% for balances under $5 million and 0.76% for balances over $5 million <b:>`_. Most tiers for the Crane Brokerage Sweep Indexes inched lower by one basis point in the latest week, but they remain slightly higher than at the start of the year and substantially higher than a year ago. A year earlier, average sweep rates were 0.14% (under $100K), 0.18% (under $250K), 0.23% (under $500K), 0.25% (under $1M), 0.37% (under $5M), and 0.46% (under $5M).
Fidelity is offering by far the highest FDIC-insured sweep rates among the $100K balance tier, with a yield of 0.79% as of May 17. RW Baird occupies the No. 2 spot in the weekly survey, paying out 0.55% on its $100K tier. Raymond James ranks third with a rate of 0.40% at the $100K tier, followed by Schwab's 0.33% rate. Both UBS and Wells Fargo are yielding 0.30%, while Ameriprise is paying 0.25% on balances of $100K. E*Trade and Morgan Stanley offer just 0.15%, Merrill pays 0.14% and TD Ameritrade ranks last at just 0.10%.
For more on brokerage sweeps, see these Crane Data News articles: Brokerage Sweep Rates Flat; MS, E*Trade Earnings; TD Lowers Rates (4/23/19), BNY Keeps Dreyfus Name on Money Funds; Brokerage Sweep Rates Flat (3/5/19), Edward Jones Latest to Shift to FDIC Sweeps; ICI: MMFs Break $3T in '18 (1/31/19), Schwab, Brokerages Discuss Sweeps, Money Funds on Earnings Calls (1/25/19), SF Chronicle on Brokerage Sweeps; Bloomberg on Europe Rejecting RDM (11/28/18), TD Ameritrade, Morgan Stanley on Sweeps; Money Fund Assets Rebound (10/26/18) and Money Fund Yields, Sweep Rates Move Higher; WSJ on Savings, Deposits (10/18/18).
In other news, Crane Data published its latest Weekly Money Fund Portfolio Holdings statistics and summary Wednesday. Our weekly holdings track a shifting subset of our monthly Portfolio Holdings collection, and the latest cut (with data as of May 17) includes Holdings information from 69 money funds (up from 67 on 5/10), representing $1.425 trillion (up from $1.299 trillion) of the $3.269 (43.6%) in total money fund assets tracked by Crane Data. (For our latest monthly Money Fund Portfolio Holdings numbers, see our May 10 News, "May Money Fund Portfolio Holdings: Repo, Agencies, CP Up; T-Bills Drop.")
Our latest Weekly MFPH Composition summary shows Government assets dominating the holdings list with Repurchase Agreements (Repo) totaling $545.1 billion (up from $497.4 billion a week ago), or 38.2%, Treasury debt totaling $418.4 billion (up from $371.7 billion) or 29.4%, and Government Agency securities totaling $267.2 billion (up from $248.9 billion), or 18.7%. Commercial Paper (CP) totaled $68.3 billion (up from $64.4 billion), or 4.8%, and Certificates of Deposit (CDs) totaled $69.4 billion (up from $66.4 billion), or 4.9%. A total of $23.1 billion or 1.6%, was listed in the Other category (primarily Time Deposits), and VRDNs accounted for $33.9 billion, or 2.4%.
The Ten Largest Issuers in our Weekly Holdings product include: the US Treasury with $418.4 billion (29.4% of total holdings), Federal Home Loan Bank with $198.8B (13.9%), Fixed Income Clearing Co with $65.8B (4.6%), BNP Paribas with $64.2 billion (4.5%), RBC with $45.4B (3.2%), Federal Farm Credit Bank with $42.1B (3.0%), JP Morgan with $30.8B (2.2%), Societe Generale with $30.4B (2.1%), Barclays PLC with $28.6B (2.0%) and Wells Fargo with $27.6B (1.9%).
The Ten Largest Funds tracked in our latest Weekly include: JP Morgan US Govt ($134.7B), Fidelity Inv MM: Govt Port ($115.7B), Goldman Sachs FS Govt ($100.1B), BlackRock Lq FedFund ($89.6B), Wells Fargo Govt MMkt ($79.4B), BlackRock Lq T-Fund ($66.0B), Fidelity Inv MM: MMkt Port ($58.2B), Goldman Sachs FS Trs Instruments ($56.8B), Dreyfus Govt Cash Mgmt ($55.7B) and JP Morgan 100% US Trs MMkt ($55.2B). (Let us know if you'd like to see our latest domestic U.S. and/or "offshore" Weekly Portfolio Holdings collection and summary, or our Bond Fund Portfolio Holdings data series.)
