Money Market News
ICI's latest "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows money funds falling $19.6 billion to $6.751 trillion in the latest week, after inching lower by $0.4 billion the previous week. Two weeks prior, assets jumped $95.9 billion to a record $6.771 trillion. Money fund assets have risen in 14 of the last 20, and 25 of the last 35, weeks, increasing by $447.5 billion (or 7.1%) since the Fed cut on 9/18 and increasing by $773.5 billion (or 12.9%) since April 24. MMF assets are up by $865 billion, or 14.7%, year-to-date in 2024 (through 12/18/24), with Institutional MMFs up $458 billion, or 12.7% and Retail MMFs up $407 billion, or 17.8%. Over the past 52 weeks, money funds have risen by $881 billion, or 15.0%, with Retail MMFs up by $420 billion (18.4%) and Inst MMFs rising by $461 billion (12.8%). (Note: Thank you to those who attended and supported our Money Fund University this week in Providence! Attendees and Crane Data Subscribers may access the MFU Conference Materials here.)
The Investment Company Institute published, "Worldwide Regulated Open-Fund Assets and Flows, Third Quarter 2024," this week, which shows that money fund assets globally rose by $572.9 billion, or 5.4%, in Q3'24 to a record $11.215 trillion. Increases were led by a sharp jump in money funds in U.S., Ireland and China, while Luxembourg and France also rose. Meanwhile, money funds in Mexico and Korea were lower. MMF assets worldwide increased by $1.271 trillion, or 12.8%, in the 12 months through 9/30/24, and money funds in the U.S. now represent 60.4% of worldwide assets. We review the latest Worldwide MMF totals, below. (Note: For those attending our Money Fund University this week, welcome to Providence! Attendees and Crane Data Subscribers may access the MFU Conference Materials here.)
Crane Data published its latest Weekly Money Fund Portfolio Holdings statistics Tuesday, which track a shifting subset of our monthly Portfolio Holdings collection. The most recent cut (with data as of Dec. 13) includes Holdings information from 60 money funds (up 14 from two weeks ago), or $3.538 trillion (up from $2.780 trillion) of the $7.079 trillion in total money fund assets (or 50.0%) tracked by Crane Data. (Our Weekly MFPH are e-mail only and aren't available on the website. See our latest Monthly Money Fund Portfolio Holdings here and our Dec. 11 News, "Dec. Money Fund Portfolio Holdings: Treasuries Jump Again, Repo Dips.") (Note: For those attending our Money Fund University Dec. 19-20 in Providence, R.I, you may access the latest MFU Conference Materials here. See you tomorrow in Providence!)
The Federal Reserve released its latest quarterly "Z.1 Financial Accounts of the United States" statistical survey (a.k.a. "Flow of Funds") late last week. Among the 4 tables it includes on money market mutual funds, the Third Quarter 2024 edition shows that Total MMF Assets increased by $291 billion to $6.839 trillion in Q3'24. The Household Sector, by far the largest investor segment with $4.311 trillion, saw the biggest asset increase in Q3, followed by Nonfinancial Corporate Businesses. The Fed's latest Z.1 numbers, which contain one of the few looks at money fund investor segments available, also showed noticeable increases for the Other Financial Business (formerly Funding Corps) and Mutual Funds categories in Q3 2024. (Note: For those attending our upcoming Money Fund University, which is Dec. 19-20, 2024 in Providence, safe travels! See you Thursday!)
Crane Data's latest Money Fund Intelligence International shows that assets in European or "offshore" money market mutual funds moved higher again over the past 30 days to a record $1.449 trillion, while yields moved lower. Assets for USD, EUR and GBP all rose over the past month. Like U.S. money fund assets, European MMFs have repeatedly hit record highs in 2023 and 2024. These U.S.-style money funds, domiciled in Ireland or Luxembourg and denominated in US Dollars, Pound Sterling and Euros, increased by $37.8 billion over the 30 days through 12/12. The totals are up $251.6 billion (21.0%) year-to-date for 2024, they were up $166.9 billion (16.2%) for the year 2023. (Note that currency moves in the U.S. dollar cause Euro and Sterling totals to shift when they're translated back into totals in U.S. dollars. See our latest MFI International for more on the "offshore" money fund marketplace. These funds are only available to qualified, non-U.S. investors and are almost entirely institutional.) (Note: For those attending our Money Fund University Dec. 19-20 in Providence, R.I, you may access the latest MFU Conference Materials here. See you in Providence!)
The December issue of our Bond Fund Intelligence, which was sent to subscribers Friday morning, features the stories, "WSJ Looks at Active vs. Passive Bond Funds: All About the Agg," which discusses the predominance of active funds in the space, and "Payden & Rygel's Kerry Rapanot on Rethinking Cash," which quotes from a recent media briefing. BFI also recaps the latest Bond Fund News and includes our Crane BFI Indexes, which show that bond fund returns rebounded in November while yields were mixed. We excerpt from the new issue below. (Contact us if you'd like to see our latest Bond Fund Intelligence and BFI XLS spreadsheet, or our Bond Fund Portfolio Holdings data.) (Note: We're still taking registrations for our "basic training" event, Money Fund University, which is Dec. 19-20 in Providence, R.I. MFU Attendees and Subscribers may access the MFU Conference Materials here.)
CityWire published an article titled, "Schwab sued over Cash Features sweep program," which tells us, "Charles Schwab is facing another cash sweep-related lawsuit from a customer claiming to hold brokerage and retirement accounts with the financial services giant. The suit was filed by California resident Abraham Atachbarian in US District Court for the Southern District of New York. The complaint accuses Schwab of paying an unfairly low interest rate to clients for whom it holds uninvested cash. Atachbarian's legal complaint specifically fingers Schwab Cash Features, a program which includes bank sweep options for both brokerage and retirement account holders." (Note: We're still taking registrations for our "basic training" event, Money Fund University, which is Dec. 19-20 in Providence, R.I!)
Crane Data's December Money Fund Portfolio Holdings, with data as of Nov. 30, 2024, show that Treasuries jumped sharply last month while Repo holdings declined. Money market securities held by Taxable U.S. money funds (tracked by Crane Data) increased by $190.8 billion to $7.001 trillion in November, after increasing $82.8 billion in October, $233.8 billion in September, $57.2 billion in August and $90.4 billion in July. Taxable holdings decreased by $0.4 billion in June, increased $105.6 billion in May, and decreased $61.4 billion in April. Treasuries, the largest segment, increased $244.6 billion in November after increasing $236.2 billion in October and $92.0 billion in September. They decreased $40.2 billion in August and $21.5 billion in July. Repo, the second largest portfolio composition segment, decreased by $82.6 billion. Agencies were the third largest segment, CP remained fourth, ahead of CDs, Other/Time Deposits and VRDNs. Below, we review our latest Money Fund Portfolio Holdings statistics. (Visit our Content center to download, or contact us to request our latest Portfolio Holdings reports.) (Note: We're still accepting registrations for our "basic training" event, Money Fund University, which takes place next week, Dec. 19-20, in Providence, R.I.)
Crane Data's latest monthly Money Fund Portfolio Holdings statistics will be sent out Tuesday, and we'll be writing our regular monthly update on the new November 30 data for Wednesday's News. But we also already uploaded a separate and broader Portfolio Holdings data set based on the SEC's Form N-MFP filings on Monday. (We continue to merge the two series, and the N-MFP version is now available via our Portfolio Holdings file listings to Money Fund Wisdom subscribers.) Our new N-MFP summary, with data as of November 30, includes holdings information from 986 money funds (up 2 from last month), representing assets of $7.131 trillion (up from $6.925 trillion). Prime MMFs fell to $1.058 trillion (down from $1.158 trillion), or 14.8% of the total. We review the new N-MFP data, and we also look at our revised MMF expense data, which shows charged expenses were mostly flat and money fund revenues rose to $19.1 billion (annualized) in November. (Note: We're still adjusting to the SEC's new Form N-MFP format, so there continue to be some distortions in our data. Let us know if you see any issues or questions!)
Crane Data's latest monthly Money Fund Market Share rankings show assets increasing among most of the largest U.S. money fund complexes in November, after rising in October, September, August, July, June and May. Assets fell in March and April. Money market fund assets rose by $196.1 billion, or 2.9%, last month to a record $7.064 trillion. Total MMF assets have increased by $443.5 billion, or 6.7%, over the past 3 months, and they've increased by $777.2 billion, or 12.4%, over the past 12 months. The largest increases among the 25 largest managers last month were seen by BlackRock, JPMorgan, Vanguard, Morgan Stanley and Fidelity, which grew assets by $32.8 billion, $31.2B, $27.6B, $27.1B and $19.9B, respectively. Declines in November were seen by SSGA and HSBC, which decreased by $4.3 billion and $1.2B, respectively. Our domestic U.S. "Family" rankings are available in our MFI XLS product, our global rankings are available in our MFI International product. The combined "Family & Global Rankings" are available to Money Fund Wisdom subscribers. We review the latest market share totals, and look at money fund yields, which were lower in November.
The December issue of our flagship Money Fund Intelligence newsletter, which was sent to subscribers Friday morning, features the articles: "Money Fund Assets Break Over $7.0 Trillion; Still Going," which reviews the continued jump in MMF assets; "Top 10 Stories of 2024: Asset Surge Continues, Yields Peak," which looks back at some of Crane Data's top stories of the year; and, "BlackRock Files for Money Market ETFs: Will They Fly?" which looks at the new ETF filing. We also sent out our MFI XLS spreadsheet Friday a.m., and we've updated our Money Fund Wisdom database with 11/30/24 data. Our Dec. Money Fund Portfolio Holdings are scheduled to ship on Tuesday, December 10, and our Dec. Bond Fund Intelligence is scheduled to go out on Friday, December 13. (Note: We're still taking registrations for our "basic training" event, Money Fund University, which is Dec. 19-20 in Providence, R.I.)
Federated Hermes' Money Market CIO Deborah Cunnigham writes, "Record high: Money market assets have reached a new mark," in her latest monthly commentary. She comments, "Records, as they say, are made to be broken. But some seem so out of reach we don't pay attention to them until they are nearly upon us.... That's the case with the record amount of money market fund assets under management reached in late November. That number? $7,000,000,000,000. Yes, the convention is to abbreviate it to $7 trillion, but spelling it out shows just how big that number is, and it's cause for celebration. The broader liquidity market (including products denominated in euros and pounds, pooled investments, private funds, and other forms) is also at an all-time high. In its conference in Pittsburgh last summer, Crane Data also wedded sports and money markets with a version of the Steelers terrible towel that touted how close the industry was to $7 trillion in assets. We might soon need a new one to wave."
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