Tale of Two Assets: Inst Up, Retail Down
ICI's latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows MMFs inched higher after falling last week. Money fund assets are up $219 billion, or 5.1%, year-to-date in 2021. Inst MMFs are up $294 billion (10.6%), while Retail MMFs are down $75 billion (-4.9%). Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets have decreased by $272 billion, or -5.7%, with Retail MMFs falling by $117 billion (-7.5%) and Inst MMFs falling by $155 billion (-4.8%). ICI's "Assets" release says, "Total money market fund assets increased by $3.37 billion to $4.52 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, May 12, the Investment Company Institute reported.... Among taxable money market funds, government funds increased by $9.42 billion and prime funds decreased by $4.48 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $1.57 billion." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs increasing $13.8 billion and Retail MMFs decreasing $10.5 billion. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $3.926 trillion (86.9% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $495.5 billion (11.0%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $94.5 billion (2.1%). (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 $10.46 billion to $1.45 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $6.07 billion to $1.13 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $3.32 billion to $240.36 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $1.07 billion to $84.47 billion." Retail assets account for just under a third of total assets, or 32.1%, and Government Retail assets make up 77.6% of all Retail MMFs. ICI adds, "Assets of institutional money market funds increased by $13.83 billion to $3.07 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets increased by $15.48 billion to $2.80 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $1.16 billion to $255.17 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $494 million to $10.06 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 67.9% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 91.3% of all Institutional MMF totals.
