Assets Dip After 8 Weeks of Gains
ICI's latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows assets inching lower after 8 straight weeks of gains. Over the past 9 weeks, money fund assets have increased by $148.1 billion, and over the past 11 weeks assets they are up $184.7 billion. Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets have increased by $393 billion, or 9.1%, with Retail MMFs falling by $66 billion (-4.3%) and Inst MMFs rising by $443 billion (16.0%). ICI's release says, "Total money market fund assets decreased by $2.58 billion to $4.70 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, January 5, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Among taxable money market funds, government funds decreased by $6.51 billion and prime funds increased by $1.88 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds increased by $2.06 billion." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs decreasing $20.0 billion and Retail MMFs increasing $17.4 billion in the latest week. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $4.169 trillion (88.7% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $444.9 billion (9.5%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $88.7 billion (1.9%). ICI explains, "Assets of retail money market funds increased by $17.41 billion to $1.49 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets increased by $16.29 billion to $1.20 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $548 million to $205.67 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $570 million to $77.96 billion." Retail assets account for just under a third of total assets, or 31.6%, and Government Retail assets make up 80.9% of all Retail MMFs. They add, "Assets of institutional money market funds decreased by $19.99 billion to $3.22 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $22.80 billion to $2.97 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $1.33 billion to $239.25 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $1.49 billion to $10.69 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 68.4% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 92.2% of all Institutional MMF totals. (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 Crane's asset series.)
