Retail Keeps Driving Assets Higher
The Investment Company Institute's latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows money fund assets rose in the latest week after one down week and two weeks of big gains before that. ICI shows assets down by $117 billion, or -2.5%, year-to-date, with Institutional MMFs down $203 billion, or -6.3% and Retail MMFs up $86 billion, or 5.9%. Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets are up by $64 billion, or 1.4%, with Retail MMFs rising by $119 billion (8.3%) and Inst MMFs falling by $56 billion (-1.8%). (For the month of October, MMF assets increased by $6.0 billion to $5.042 trillion according to Crane's MFI XLS, which tracks a broader universe of funds than ICI. Crane Data's Prime asset total is currently $981.0 billion.) Their weekly release says, "Total money market fund assets increased by $10.29 billion to $4.59 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, October 12, the Investment Company Institute reported.... Among taxable money market funds, government funds decreased by $2.78 billion and prime funds increased by $9.70 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds increased by $3.38 billion." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs decreasing $1.5 billion and Retail MMFs increasing $11.8 billion in the latest week. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $3.931 trillion (85.7% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $552.0 billion (12.0%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $105.3 billion (2.3%). ICI explains, "Assets of retail money market funds increased by $11.75 billion to $1.55 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets increased by $1.15 billion to $1.14 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $7.70 billion to $322.23 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $2.90 billion to $94.21 billion." Retail assets account for a third of total assets, or 33.9%, and Government Retail assets make up 73.2% of all Retail MMFs. They add, "Assets of institutional money market funds decreased by $1.46 billion to $3.03 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $3.94 billion to $2.79 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $2.00 billion to $229.76 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $475 million to $11.10 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 66.1% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 92.1% 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.)
