Money Market News
S&P Global Ratings published "U.S. Domestic 'AAAm' Money Market Fund Trends (First-Quarter 2025)" recently, which tells us, "Rated MMF assets were stable quarter over quarter. Government and prime MMFs experienced modest growth early in the year, which was partially related to institutional investors building up cash amid the uncertainty around the U.S. administration's policies. Near the end of the first quarter, rated MMFs saw outflows in line with seasonal patterns. We expect that MMF assets will experience limited growth until the tax season settles."
Crane Data's latest Money Fund Intelligence International shows that assets in European or "offshore" money market mutual funds inched lower over the past 30 days to $1.506 trillion, after hitting a record high $1.518 trillion the month prior, while yields were flat or lower. Assets for USD and EUR MMFs fell while GBP MMFs were flat over the past month. Like U.S. money fund assets, European MMFs repeatedly hit record highs in 2023, 2024 and early in 2025 but have paused in recent weeks. These U.S.-style money funds, domiciled in Ireland or Luxembourg and denominated in US Dollars, Pound Sterling and Euros, decreased by $12.6 billion over the 30 days through 5/13. The totals are up $73.1 billion (5.1%) year-to-date for 2025, they were up $235.3 billion (19.7%) for 2024 and 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.)
The May issue of our Bond Fund Intelligence, which was sent to subscribers Wednesday morning, features the stories, "Fidelity Says Shorter Is Better for Bond Funds; 88% of Return," which covers a recent white paper, and "ICI's 2025 Fact Book Reviews '24 Bond Fund Trends, Flows," which looks at the latest stats on the fund industry. BFI also recaps the latest Bond Fund News and includes our Crane BFI Indexes, which show that bond fund returns inched higher in April while yields were also higher. 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.)
With money market fund assets continuing to hover near record levels (assets remain just above $7.3 trillion), our upcoming Money Fund Symposium seems destined to break well over 600 attendees. Money Fund Symposium 2025 is scheduled for June 23-25, 2025 at The Renaissance Boston Seaport, in Boston, Mass. The full agenda for the largest gathering of money market fund managers and cash investors in the world is available and registrations are still being taken. Money Fund Symposium attracts money fund managers, marketers and servicers, cash investors, money market securities dealers, issuers, and regulators. We review our latest agenda, as well as Crane Data's other 2025 conferences, below.
Crane Data's May Money Fund Portfolio Holdings, with data as of April 30, 2025, show that holdings of Repo jumped last month while Treasuries declined. Money market securities held by Taxable U.S. money funds (tracked by Crane Data) decreased by $73.8 billion to $7.199 trillion in April, after increasing $45.6 billion in March, $53.7 billion in February, $84.1 billion in January, and $88.0 billion in December. They rose by $190.8 billion in November, $82.8 billion in October and $233.8 billion in September. Repo, now the largest segment, increased $31.4 billion in April. Treasuries, now the second largest portfolio composition segment, decreased by $168.3 billion. Agencies were the third largest segment, 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 May 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 April 30, includes holdings information from 992 money funds (up 5 from last month), representing assets of $7.367 trillion (down from a record high of $7.433 trillion a month ago). Prime MMFs rose to $1.137 trillion (up from $1.133 trillion), or 15.4% 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 $19.6 billion (annualized) in April.
Crane Data's latest monthly Money Fund Market Share rankings show assets mostly lower among most of the largest U.S. money fund complexes in April after a relatively flat March. Assets increased in February, January, December, November, October, September, August, July, June and May. Assets also fell last April and March. Money market fund assets fell by $26.3 billion, or -0.4%, last month to $7.306 trillion. Total MMF assets have increased by $73.9 billion, or 1.0%, over the past 3 months, and they've increased by $920.5 billion, or 14.4%, over the past 12 months. The largest increases among the 25 largest managers last month were seen by American Funds, BlackRock, Vanguard, HSBC and Dreyfus, which grew assets by $25.6 billion, $7.8B, $4.5B, $3.9B and $3.2B, respectively. Declines in April were seen by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Federated Hermes, Morgan Stanley and Fidelity, which decreased by $13.7 billion, $13.0B, $12.1B, $11.3B and $11.0B, 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 flat to slightly lower in April.
The May issue of our flagship Money Fund Intelligence newsletter, which was sent to subscribers Wednesday morning, features the articles: "Money Funds Shift Away from Treasuries; Stablecoins Step In," which discusses recent portfolio composition shifts in the MMF space; "ICI 2025 Fact Book Shows Money Fund Trends in '24," which looks at ICI's latest stats on the fund industry; and, "Charles Schwab Q1 Earnings Discuss Sweeps, Higher Cash" which reviews Schwab's Q1 earnings. We also sent out our MFI XLS spreadsheet Wednesday a.m., and we've updated our Money Fund Wisdom database with 4/30/25 data. Our May Money Fund Portfolio Holdings are scheduled to ship on Friday, May 9, and our May Bond Fund Intelligence is scheduled to go out on Wednesday, May 14.
Recent "Minutes of the Meeting of the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee April 29, 2025" comment on stablecoins and money market funds," saying, "With the growth of the cryptocurrency and digital asset economy has come the expansion of the 'stablecoin' market in the United States and abroad. As this asset class continues to grow, the distinctions between money funds and payment stablecoins has continued to converge. Some stablecoins are moving towards paying interest, money market funds are exploring tokenization, and Congress is considering explicitly defining what constitutes a collateralized dollar-backed payment stablecoin. Please articulate the terminal effects of interest-bearing stablecoins from a perspective of Treasury demand, USD hegemony, the expansion of dollar-backed payment stablecoins, and potential effects for insured depository institutions. Further, do tokenized money funds present a risk should they be allowed to compete with other payment or settlement instruments?"
As we wrote last Thursday, the Investment Company Institute recently published its "2025 Investment Company Fact Book," an annual compilation of statistics and commentary on the mutual fund industry. We reviewed much of the money fund content in our May 1 News, "ICI Publishes 2025 Fact Book, Reviews US, Worldwide Money Funds in '24." But below we focus on the numerous "Data Tables" involving "Money Market Mutual Funds." ICI lists annual statistics on shareholder accounts, the number of funds, net assets, net new cash flows, paid and reinvested dividends, composition of prime and government funds, and net assets of institutional investors by type of institution. (Note: Register soon for our Money Fund Symposium show, which will be held June 23-25, 2025 in Boston, Mass.!)
The U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission's Division of Economic and Risk Analysis (DERA) published a study titled, "Influences on Money Market Fund Price Variations During the March 2020 Market Dislocation," which states in its Abstract, "This white paper examines weekly fluctuations in money market fund ('MMF') market prices surrounding the March 2020 market dislocation, which resulted from the economic disruptions caused by the COVID 19 pandemic.... The analysis in this white paper identifies key factors influencing these price variations, including interest rates, redemptions, portfolio construction, and liquidity. This white paper aims to inform the Commission, investors, and other interested parties with insights into broader trends within the money market fund industry."
The Investment Company Institute released its "2025 Investment Company Fact Book," an annual compilation of statistics and commentary on the mutual fund space. Subtitled, "A Review of Trends and Activities in the Investment Company Industry," the latest edition tells us, "With stock markets rising across the globe in 2024 (24% in the United States and 10% in the Asia-Pacific region) worldwide total net assets of equity funds, which invest primarily in publicly traded stocks, increased by 12% to $35.7 trillion at year-end 2024. Bond funds -- which invest primarily in fixed-income securities -- saw their total net assets increase 7% over the same period, somewhat reflecting total returns (capital gains and interest income) on bonds in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region of 3% and 7%, respectively. Net assets of money market funds, which are regulated funds restricted to holding short-term, high-quality debt instruments, also increased substantially." We excerpt from the latest "Fact Book" below. (See too Tuesday's Link, "2025 Investment Company Fact Book," which quotes from ICI's press release.)
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