Money Market News
J.P. Morgan Chase led off the latest batch of Q3'26 quarterly bank and brokerage earnings calls. If this first call is any indication, the discussions are likely to be filled with comments on the impact of AI cash optimization tools. (See the JPM earnings call transcript here.) CFO Jeremy Barnum says during the Q&A, "There's obviously been a lot of focus on the Smart Cash solution, which I think is a small piece of the overall story. That is live now actually as of the last couple weeks. Very early days, and it remains a targeted pilot type thing. It is interesting to learn some things about what clients care about and sort of see how it works to kind of sell a product like this in the field. So maybe more to come on that in the future." (See Crane Data's 9/29 News, "WSJ Discusses AI's Impact on Brokerage Sweeps and Bank Cash Sorting, and see our latest Money Fund Intelligence newsletter.)
Crane Data's October Money Fund Portfolio Holdings, with data as of Sept. 30, 2026, show that holdings of Treasuries plunged while Repo increased. Money market securities held by Taxable U.S. money funds (tracked by Crane Data) decreased by $140.1 billion to $8.203 trillion in September, after increasing $131.9 billion in August, decreasing $8.7 billion in July and $4.9 billion in June, increasing $255.9 billion in May, decreasing $105.9 billion in April and $103.0 billion in March. Taxable assets increased $113.2 billion in February, but they decreased $54.6 billion in January. Treasuries, the largest portfolio composition segment, decreased by $211.1 billion. Repo, the second largest segment, increased $36.0 billion in September. Agencies were the third largest segment, and CP remained fourth, ahead of CDs, Other/Time Deposits and VRDNs. Below, we review our Money Fund Portfolio Holdings statistics. (Visit our Content center to download, or contact us to request our latest Portfolio Holdings reports.)
Crane Data's latest monthly Money Fund Portfolio Holdings statistics will be sent out Friday, and we'll be writing our regular monthly update on the new September data for Monday'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 Thursday. (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 September 30, includes holdings information from 1041 money funds (up 15 from last month), representing assets of $8.394 trillion (down from $8.503 trillion a month ago). Prime MMFs fell to $1.238 trillion (down from $1.239 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 fell to $21.7 billion (annualized) in September.
Crane Data's latest monthly Money Fund Market Share rankings show assets lower among the largest U.S. money fund complexes in September, after being higher in August. Assets have increased in 22 of the past 27 months (April 2025, March 2026, April 2026, July 2026 and September 2026 saw declines). Money market fund assets fell by $51.0 billion, or -0.6%, last month to $8.298 trillion. Total MMF assets decreased by $56.8 billion, or -0.7%, over the past 3 months, and they've increased by $585.9 billion, or 7.6%, over the past 12 months. The largest increases among the 25 largest managers last month were seen by Morgan Stanley, DWS, BNY Dreyfus, HSBC and Goldman Sachs, which grew assets by $12.5 billion, $6.8B, $5.7B, $5.2B and $3.7B, respectively. Declines in September were seen by Fidelity, State Street, American Funds, Federated Hermes and Vanguard, which decreased by $24.5 billion, $16.3B, $7.2B, $5.3B and $4.8B, 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 higher in September.
The October issue of our flagship Money Fund Intelligence newsletter, which was sent to subscribers Wednesday morning, features the articles: "AI Impact on Brokerage Sweep and Deposits Returns to Fore," which discusses AI's potential impact on low-yielding brokerage sweep and bank deposit options; "European MFS Paris Focuses on Tokenization, Growth," which reviews highlights from Crane Data's latest conference; and "ICI Worldwide: MMFs Rise in Q2'26 to Record $13.7 Trillion," which recaps the latest global money fund statistics. We also sent out our MFI XLS spreadsheet Wednesday a.m., and we've updated our Money Fund Wisdom database with 9/30/26 data. Our October Money Fund Portfolio Holdings are scheduled to ship on Friday, Oct. 9, and our October Bond Fund Intelligence is scheduled to go out Thursday, Oct. 15. (Note: Thanks to those of you who supported our European Money Fund Symposium in Paris! Mark your calendars for next year's show in London, Sept. 23-24, 2027!)
While we're still recovering for our European Money Fund Symposium, which took place in Paris 2 weeks ago, we're also ramping up preparations for our next Money Fund University conference, which will be in Greenwich, Conn., Dec. 17-18. Crane's Money Fund University is designed for those new to the money market fund industry or those in need of a concentrated refresher on the basics. The event also focuses on hot topics like money market fund regulations, money fund alternatives, offshore markets, and other recent industry trends. Our educational conference features a faculty of the money fund industry's top lawyers, strategists, and portfolio managers, and the Greenwich show will include our Holiday cocktail party Dec. 17 and a free product training session for Crane Data clients. We review the MFU agenda and some other upcoming conferences, below. (Note: Thanks again to those of you who supported Crane's European Money Fund Symposium, and mark your calendars for next year's show in London, Sept. 23-24, 2027!)
Crane Data hosted its latest European Money Fund Symposium conference in Paris late last month, where a record 250 money market professionals discussed rates, tokenization, record asset levels and a number of other hot topics in "offshore" cash. The opening session of day 2, "Tokenized Money Funds, Stablecoins & More," was moderated by our Peter Crane and featured Brenden Carroll of Dechert LLP, Andrew Paranthoiene of S&P Global Ratings and Rachel Thornton of Northern Trust. Paranthoiene says about tokenization, "This is sort of the question of the day.... The balloon of ESG is sort of fading away.... But one of the things that we are thinking about ... from a wider market perspective is the evolution, or the revolution, in regards to tokenized money market funds." (Note: Thanks again to those of you who supported our European Money Fund Symposium in Paris, and mark your calendars for next year's show in London, Sept. 23-24, 2027!)
The Investment Company Institute's latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows money fund assets plummeting $45.4 billion to $7.891 trillion. Assets rose $15.2 billion the previous week and decreased $52.0 billion the week before this. Assets saw a record high of $7.979 trillion four weeks ago. MMF assets are up by $526 billion, or 7.1%, over the past 52 weeks (through 9/30/26), with Institutional MMFs up $397 billion, or 9.0% and Retail MMFs up $109 billion, or 3.6%. Year-to-date in 2026, MMF assets are up by $158 billion, or 2.0%, with Institutional MMFs up $129 billion, or 2.8% and Retail MMFs up $29 billion, or 0.9%.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York's "Liberty Street Economics" recently asked, "Who's Borrowing and Lending in Repo Markets?" The article states, "Repo markets play a vital role in the U.S. financial system. In this three-part series, we examine who participates in these markets, what trade-offs influence how different repo segments are structured, and why repos matter for monetary policy. Today's post introduces repo transactions, focusing on the major private-sector participants and why they engage in these markets." (Note: Thanks again to those of you who attended and supported our European Money Fund Symposium in Paris! Mark your calendars for next year's show in London, Sept. 23-24, 2027!)
ICI's latest monthly "Trends in Mutual Fund Investing - August 2026" and "Month-End Portfolio Holdings of Taxable Money Funds" show money fund totals increasing $71.3 billion, or 0.9%, in August to $7.928 trillion. MMFs increased by $711.8 billion, or 9.9%, over the past 12 months (through 8/31/26). Money funds' August asset increase follows a decrease of $43.7 billion in July, an increase of $75.9 billion in June, $157.2 billion in May, a decrease of $100.5 billion in April and $16.9 billion in March, and an increase of $59.9 billion in February. Bond fund assets increased $35.0 billion to $5.717 trillion in August 2026. (Note: Thanks once more to those of you who attended our European Money Fund Symposium in Paris last week! Mark your calendars for next year's show in London, Sept. 23-24, 2027!)
Last week, The Wall Street Journal's "Heard on the Street" column featured a piece titled, "In the Age of AI, Cash Is Still King." Author Telis Demos writes, "When it comes to financial stocks these days, investors seem most concerned about their ability to attract, and hang on to, customers' cash. For many years, cash was trash, as the saying goes. Savings accounts, short-term Treasury bills and money-market funds paid little yield when interest rates were near zero. And when the Federal Reserve was growing its balance sheet, adding reserves into the banking system, banks looking to hoover up deposits at times just needed to hold out a bucket." (Note: Thanks again to those of you who attended our European Money Fund Symposium in Paris last week! Mark your calendars for next year's show in London, Sept. 23-24, 2027!)
EFAMA, The European Funds and Management Association, published a release titled, "Global investment fund flows show a moderate recovery in Q2 2026," as well as their quarterly, "Worldwide Regulated Open-end Fund Assets and Flows Trends in the Second Quarter of 2026." The former tells us, "EFAMA has published its latest International Quarterly Statistical Release for Q2 2026. (Note: For those of you who attended our European Money Fund Symposium in Paris last week, thank you! Mark your calendars for next year in London, Sept. 23-24, 2027!)
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