ICI: MMF Assets Up For Second Week
ICI's latest "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows MMFs rising for the second week in a row, but just their 6th increase in the past 24 weeks. Money fund assets are up $18 billion, or 0.5%, year-to-date in 2021, with Inst MMFs up $10 billion (0.4%) and Retail MMFs up $8 billion (0.6%). Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets have increased by $685 billion, or 19.5%, with Retail MMFs rising by $155 billion (11.6%) and Inst MMFs rising by $530 billion (24.4%). ICI says, "Total money market fund assets increased by $6.03 billion to $4.32 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, January 13.... Among taxable money market funds, government funds increased by $9.94 billion and prime funds decreased by $2.76 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $1.15 billion." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs increasing $5.5 billion and Retail MMFs increasing $499 million. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $3.666 trillion (84.9% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $543.3 billion (12.6%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $106.3 billion (2.5%). (Note that ICI's asset totals don't include a number of funds tracked by the SEC and Crane Data, so they're almost $400 billion lower than our asset series.) They explain, "Assets of retail money market funds increased by $499 million to $1.53 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets increased by $3.72 billion to $1.16 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $1.93 billion to $276.94 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $1.29 billion to $93.74 billion." Retail assets account for just over a third of total assets, or 35.6%, and Government Retail assets make up 75.9% of all Retail MMFs. ICI adds, "Assets of institutional money market funds increased by $5.53 billion to $2.78 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets increased by $6.21 billion to $2.50 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $825 million to $266.38 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $145 million to $12.53 billion." Institutional assets, which broke below the $3.0 trillion level for the first time since April 22 at the end of August, accounted for 64.5% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 90.0% of all Institutional MMF totals.
