ICI: MMF Assets Retreat to $5.45 Tril.
The Investment Company Institute's latest "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows MMF assets declining for the fourth week in the past five weeks. (Prior to this, MMFs had hit records for 7 straight weeks, and in 13 weeks out of the past 15. They hit a record last week too.) Assets have risen by $634 billion, or 13.1%, over the prior 20 weeks (breaking the $5.4 billion at the end of May). ICI shows assets up by $719 billion, or 15.2%, year-to-date in 2023, with Institutional MMFs up $375 billion, or 12.3% and Retail MMFs up $345 billion, or 20.5%. Over the past 52 weeks, money fund assets have risen $881 billion, or 19.3%, with Retail MMFs rising by $555 billion (37.8%) and Inst MMFs rising by $326 billion (10.5%). Their weekly release says, "Total money market fund assets decreased by $20.37 billion to $5.45 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, July 12, the Investment Company Institute reported.... Among taxable money market funds, government funds decreased by $29.61 billion and prime funds increased by $10.16 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $912 million." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs falling $25.6 billion and Retail MMFs rising $5.2 billion in the latest week. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $4.494 trillion (82.4% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $842.5 billion (15.4%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $117.5 billion (2.2%). ICI explains, "Assets of retail money market funds increased by $5.23 billion to $2.02 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $241 million to $1.35 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $5.45 billion to $568.76 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $30 million to $106.16 billion." Retail assets account for over a third of total assets, or 37.1%, and Government Retail assets make up 66.6% of all Retail MMFs. They add, "Assets of institutional money market funds decreased by $25.60 billion to $3.43 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $29.37 billion to $3.15 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $4.72 billion to $273.72 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $943 million to $11.37 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 62.9% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 91.7% of all Institutional MMF totals. (According to Crane Data's separate Money Fund Intelligence Daily series, money fund assets have increased by $10.3 billion in July through 7/13 to $5.857 trillion. 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.)
