Money Market News
The Investment Company Institute's latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows money market mutual fund assets rising another $11.3 billion to a record $6.474 trillion, following an increase of $38.7 billion the week prior and a jump of $120.8 billion two weeks prior -- the 6th largest weekly increase ever and the largest non-Covid or non-SVB related increase. Assets have risen in 20 of the last 25 weeks, increasing by $496.9 billion (or 8.3%) since April 24. MMF assets are up by $588 billion, or 12.4%, year-to-date in 2024 (through 10/9/24), with Institutional MMFs up $272 billion, or 8.9% and Retail MMFs up $316 billion, or 18.8%. Over the past 52 weeks, money funds have risen by $768 billion, or 13.5%, with Retail MMFs up by $434 billion (20.0%) and Inst MMFs rising by $334 billion (9.4%). (Note: Crane Data's separate and more comprehensive asset series shows money funds hitting a record $6.816 trillion on October 3 but closing just shy of this mark on Wednesday, 10/9.)
Crane Data's October Money Fund Portfolio Holdings, with data as of Sept. 30, 2024, show that Repo and Treasuries jumped sharply while Other (mostly Time Deposits) holdings dropped last month. Money market securities held by Taxable U.S. money funds (tracked by Crane Data) increased by $233.8 billion to $6.727 trillion in September, after increasing $57.2 billion in August and $90.4 billion in July, but decreasing by $0.4 billion in June. Holdings increased $105.6 billion in May but decreased $61.4 billion in April. Repo, now the largest segment, increased $151.7 billion in September after decreasing $40.2 billion in August and $21.5 billion in July (but increasing $99.3 billion in June). Treasuries increased by $92.0 billion, but moved down to the No. 2 spot for largest portfolio segment. 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.)
Crane Data's latest monthly Money Fund Portfolio Holdings statistics will be sent out Wednesday, and we'll be writing our regular monthly update on the new September 30 data for Thursday'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 Tuesday. (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 1,011 money funds (down 9 from last month), representing assets of $6.872 trillion (up from $6.644 trillion). Prime MMFs rose to $1.139 trillion (up $10.0 billion), or 16.6% 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 $18.3 billion (annualized) in September. (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 September, after rising in August, July, June and May. Assets fell in March and April. Money market fund assets rose by $155.2 billion, or 2.3%, last month to a record $6.776 trillion. Total MMF assets have increased by $283.2 billion, or 4.4%, over the past 3 months, and they've increased by $676.0 billion, or 11.1%, over the past 12 months. The largest increases among the 25 largest managers last month were seen by SSGA, Fidelity, BlackRock, JPM and Schwab, which grew assets by $45.3 billion, $38.4B, $17.4B, $12.7B and $12.2B, respectively. Declines in September were seen by Allspring, DWS, Western, First American and Columbia, which decreased by $11.7 billion, $3.5B, $3.0B, $301M and $121M, 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 September.
The October issue of our flagship Money Fund Intelligence newsletter, which was sent to subscribers Monday morning, features the articles: "Assets Spike to Record $6.8T; Yields Plunge to 4.7% on Cut," which reviews the jump in assets and drop in yields following the big Fed cut; "European MF Symposium: Breaking Records in London," which quotes from our recent offshore MMF conference; and, "Worldwide MMFs Jump in Q2'24, Hit Record $10.6 Tril.," which recaps the latest statistics on money fund markets outside the U.S. We also sent out our MFI XLS spreadsheet Monday a.m., and we've updated our Money Fund Wisdom database with 9/30/24 data. Our Oct. Money Fund Portfolio Holdings are scheduled to ship on Wednesday, October 9, and our Oct. Bond Fund Intelligence is scheduled to go out on Tuesday, October 15 (a day late due to the Columbus Day Holiday). (Note: Please join us for our "basic training" event, Money Fund University, which takes place Dec. 19-20 in Providence, R.I.)
The Investment Company Institute's latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows money market mutual fund assets jumping another $38.7 billion to a record $6.463 trillion, following an increase of $120.8 billion the week prior -- the 6th largest weekly increase ever and the largest non-Covid or non-SVB related increase. Assets have risen in 19 of the last 24 weeks, increasing by $485.6 billion (or 8.1%) since April 24. MMF assets are up by $577 billion, or 12.2%, year-to-date in 2024 (through 10/2/24), with Institutional MMFs up $269 billion, or 8.8% and Retail MMFs up $307 billion, or 18.3%. Over the past 52 weeks, money funds have risen by $755 billion, or 13.2%, with Retail MMFs up by $438 billion (20.3%) and Inst MMFs rising by $317 billion (8.9%). (Note: Crane Data's separate and more comprehensive asset series shows money funds hitting a record $6.799 trillion on September 26!)
Bloomberg published an article titled, "Money-Market Funds Stay in Vogue Even as Reforms Go Into Effect," which recapped the latest changes to the Prime Institutional money fund space. They write, "Money-market funds are attracting record amounts of cash, even as a regulatory overhaul pins the industry with costly mandatory fees. The US Securities and Exchange Commission approved measures last year designed to make the $6.42 trillion industry more transparent and prevent investors from yanking money from such funds during market volatility or financial stress like in March 2020. The final piece of the reform requiring fund managers to impose mandatory liquidity fees went into effect on Wednesday."
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 Sept. 27) includes Holdings information from 61 money funds (up 1 from a week ago), or $3.361 trillion (up from $3.091 trillion) of the $6.791 trillion in total money fund assets (or 49.5%) 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 Sept. 12 News, "September Money Fund Portfolio Holdings: Treasuries Jump; Repo Slides.")
Money fund yields moved lower following the Federal Reserve's Sept. 18 50 basis point rate cut, while money market mutual fund assets jumped to all-time records last week (though they eased off Friday). Money fund yields slid 18 basis points to 4.75% on average in the week ended Sept. 27 (as measured by our Crane 100 Money Fund Index, an average of 7-day yields for the 100 largest taxable money funds), after falling 12 bps the week prior. Yields were 5.10% on 8/31, 5.13% on 7/31 and 6/28, 5.14% on 5/31, 5.13% on 4/30, 5.14% on 3/31 and 2/29/24, 5.17% on 1/31/24, 5.20% on 12/31/23, 4.94% on 6/30/23, 4.61% on 3/31/23 and 4.05% on 12/31/22. Yields should continue to inch lower as they digest the final remnants of the Fed cut, then they should stabilize until the next cut.
Last week, Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr gave a speech entitled, "Supporting Market Resilience and Financial Stability," which suggested that regulators will be taking a harder look at uninsured bank deposits. He states, "[W]e have made important progress since last year's conference. The Securities and Exchange Commission has finalized a rule on central clearing of Treasury transactions, the Treasury Department has instituted a program for buying back less-liquid Treasury securities, and the Office of Financial Research is preparing for its permanent collection of data on non-centrally-cleared bilateral repurchase agreement (repo) transactions, which will support our understanding of this market segment as it evolves."
The Investment Company Institute published its latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report and its latest monthly "Trends in Mutual Fund Investing" for August 2024, as well as its monthly "Month-End Portfolio Holdings of Taxable Money Funds" Thursday. The former shows money market mutual fund assets skyrocketing $120.8 billion -- the 6th largest weekly increase ever and the largest non-Covid or non-SVB related increase -- to a record $6.424 trillion. Assets have risen in 18 of the last 23 weeks, increasing by $446.9 billion (or 7.5%) since April 24. MMF assets are up by $538 billion, or 11.4%, year-to-date in 2024 (through 9/25/24), with Institutional MMFs up $255 billion, or 8.3% and Retail MMFs up $283 billion, or 16.9%. Over the past 52 weeks, money funds have risen by $780 billion, or 13.8%, with Retail MMFs up by $440 billion (20.6%) and Inst MMFs rising by $341 billion (9.7%). (Note: Crane Data's separate and more comprehensive asset series shows money funds hitting a record $6.766 trillion this week!)
The Securities and Exchange Commission published its latest monthly "Money Market Fund Statistics" summary for August, which shows that total money fund assets rose by $97.8 billion in August to a record $6.668 trillion, after jumping $19.5 billion the month prior. The SEC shows Prime MMFs decreasing $25.1 billion in August to $1.163 trillion, Govt & Treasury funds increasing $121.9 billion to $5.371 trillion and Tax Exempt funds increasing $1.0 billion to $133.2 billion. Taxable yields fell in August after inching higher in July. The SEC's Division of Investment Management summarizes monthly Form N-MFP data and includes asset totals and averages for yields, liquidity levels, WAMs, WALs, holdings, and other money market fund trends. We review their latest numbers below. (Month-to-date in September through 9/24, total money fund assets increased by $145.6 billion to a record $6.761 trillion, according to Crane Data's separate, and slightly smaller, MFI Daily series.)
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