April 15 Still Bites: MMF Assets Fall
The ICI's latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows MMFs plunging in the latest week, marking their `2nd decrease in a row. Money fund assets are still up $157 billion, or 3.7%, year-to-date in 2021 though. Inst MMFs are up $205 billion (7.4%), while Retail MMFs are down $48 billion (-3.1%). Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets have decreased by $68 billion, or -1.5%, with Retail MMFs falling by $65 billion (-4.2%) and Inst MMFs falling by $3 billion (-0.1%). ICI's "Assets" release says, "Total money market fund assets decreased by $30.04 billion to $4.45 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, April 14.... Among taxable money market funds, government funds decreased by $20.15 billion and prime funds decreased by $8.48 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $1.42 billion." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs decreasing $20.9 billion and Retail MMFs decreasing $9.2 billion. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $3.853 trillion (86.5% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $503.7 billion (11.3%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $98.0 billion (2.2%). (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.) It explains, "Assets of retail money market funds decreased by $9.19 billion to $1.48 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $6.02 billion to $1.14 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $2.17 billion to $248.00 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $1.00 billion to $87.07 billion." Retail assets account for just over a third of total assets, or 33.2%, and Government Retail assets make up 77.3% of all Retail MMFs. ICI adds, "Assets of institutional money market funds decreased by $20.86 billion to $2.98 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $14.14 billion to $2.71 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $6.31 billion to $255.69 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $416 million to $10.95 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 66.8% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 91.0% of all Institutional MMF totals.
