Prime Retail MMF Assets Jump
Prime Retail money market funds, which have been increasing strongly in recent months, accounted for almost all of the overall MMF asset increase in the latest week ($7.8 billion of the total $8.1 billion). The Investment Company Institute's latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows assets rising after falling for 3 weeks in a row. Year-to-date, MMFs are down by $135 billion, or -2.9%, with Institutional MMFs down $155 billion, or -4.8% and Retail MMFs up $20 billion, or 1.4%. Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets are up by $43 billion, or 1.0%, with Retail MMFs rising by $63 billion (4.4%) and Inst MMFs falling by $20 billion (-0.6%). (For the month of August through 8/24, MMF assets have increased by $34.9 billion to $5.032 trillion according to Crane's MFI XLS, which tracks a broader universe of funds than ICI.) ICI's weekly release says, "Total money market fund assets increased by $8.08 billion to $4.57 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, August 24, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Among taxable money market funds, government funds decreased by $925 million and prime funds increased by $7.63 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds increased by $1.37 billion." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs increasing $2.7 billion and Retail MMFs increasing $5.4 billion in the latest week. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $3.971 trillion (86.9% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $498.4 billion (10.9%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $100.5 billion (2.2%). ICI explains, "Assets of retail money market funds increased by $5.40 billion to $1.49 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $3.57 billion to $1.13 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $7.84 billion to $269.01 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $1.14 billion to $89.92 billion." Retail assets account for just under a third of total assets, or 32.6%, and Government Retail assets make up 75.9% of all Retail MMFs. They add, "Assets of institutional money market funds increased by $2.68 billion to $3.08 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets increased by $2.65 billion to $2.84 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $208 million to $229.33 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $239 million to $10.58 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 67.4% 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 over $400 billion lower than Crane's asset series.)
