MF Assets Plunge Below $4.6 Trillion
The Investment Company Institute's latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows assets falling sharply for the second week in a row and for the 5th time in the past 6 weeks. Year-to-date, MMFs are down by $112 billion, or -2.4%. Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets have increased by $276 billion, or 6.4%, with Retail MMFs falling by $46 billion (-3.0%) and Inst MMFs rising by $322 billion (11.5%). ICI's weekly release says, "Total money market fund assets decreased by $34.35 billion to $4.59 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, February 9, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Among taxable money market funds, government funds decreased by $33.55 billion and prime funds decreased by $655 million. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $139 million." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs decreasing $29.2 billion and Retail MMFs decreasing $5.1 billion in the latest week. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $4.068 trillion (88.6% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $439.2 billion (9.6%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $86.3 billion (1.9%). ICI explains, "Assets of retail money market funds decreased by $5.13 billion to $1.48 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $4.82 billion to $1.20 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $117 million to $200.99 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $197 million to $76.57 billion." Retail assets account for just under a third of total assets, or 32.2%, and Government Retail assets make up 81.2% of all Retail MMFs. They add, "Assets of institutional money market funds decreased by $29.22 billion to $3.12 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $28.74 billion to $2.87 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $538 million to $238.20 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $58 million to $9.69 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 67.8% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 92.0% 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.)
