Money Market News
The SEC published its latest quarterly "Private Funds Statistics" report recently, which summarizes Form PF reporting and includes some data on "Liquidity Funds," or pools which are similar to but not money market funds. The publication shows overall Liquidity fund assets were higher in the latest reported quarter (Q2'24) at $342 billion (up from $331 billion in Q1'24 and up from $319 billion in Q2'23). We also again briefly review the part of the SEC's MMF Reforms which addresses "Amendments to Form PF Reporting Requirements for Large Liquidity Fund Advisers" and which went into effect over the summer, below. (Note: Please join us for our upcoming Bond Fund Symposium, which will be held March 27-28, 2025 in Newport Beach, California!)
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 $1.463 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, 2024 and early in 2025. These U.S.-style money funds, domiciled in Ireland or Luxembourg and denominated in US Dollars, Pound Sterling and Euros, increased by $27.3 billion over the 30 days through 1/14. The totals are up $30.4 billion (2.1%) 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 January issue of our Bond Fund Intelligence, which will be sent to subscribers Wednesday morning, features the stories, "Top Stories & Funds of '24: Short-Term & High-Yield," which features the top BFI stories and funds from 2024, and "Worldwide BF Assets Jump to $14.1 Trillion, Led by U.S.," which recaps the latest statistics on bond fund markets outside the U.S. BFI also recaps the latest Bond Fund News and includes our Crane BFI Indexes, which show that bond fund returns fell in December 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, and join us for our upcoming Bond Fund Symposium, which is March 27-28 in Newport Beach, Calif.)
The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston asks, "Are retail prime money market fund investors increasingly more sensitive to stress events?" The paper's authors, Kenechukwu Anadu, John Levin, Lina Lu, Antoine Malfroy-Camine, and Nico Oefele, explain, "U.S. prime money market mutual funds (MMFs) experienced large redemptions and bank-like runs in 2008 and 2020. During these episodes, institutional investors in prime MMFs tended to redeem quicker and at much larger magnitudes than retail investors. In this note, we examine how retail investors' redemption sensitivity has evolved between 2008 and 2020, to assess whether they have become relatively more attuned to stress in the MMF sector."
Crane Data's January Money Fund Portfolio Holdings, with data as of Dec. 31, 2024, show that Repo holdings jumped sharply last month while Treasuries declined. Money market securities held by Taxable U.S. money funds (tracked by Crane Data) increased by $88.0 billion to $7.089 trillion in December, after increasing $190.8 billion in November, $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, decreased $69.5 billion in December after increasing $188.3 billion in November, $236.2 billion in October and $92.0 billion in September, $85.8 billion in August and $24.3 billion in July. Repo, the second largest portfolio composition segment, increased by $211.3 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.)
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 December 31 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 December 31, includes holdings information from 993 money funds (up 7 from last month), representing assets of $7.250 trillion (up from $7.131 trillion). Prime MMFs rose to $1.065 trillion (up from $1.058 trillion), or 14.7% 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 $19.3 billion (annualized) in December.
Crane Data's latest monthly Money Fund Market Share rankings show assets increasing among most of the largest U.S. money fund complexes in December, after rising in November, October, September, August, July, June and May. Assets fell in March and April. Money market fund assets rose by $113.5 billion, or 1.6%, last month to a record $7.182 trillion. Total MMF assets have increased by $408.4 billion, or 6.0%, over the past 3 months, and they've increased by $864.5 billion, or 13.7%, over the past 12 months. The largest increases among the 25 largest managers last month were seen by JPMorgan, Fidelity, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Federated Hermes, which grew assets by $28.6 billion, $27.5B, $26.6B, $21.6B and $16.7B, respectively. Declines in December were seen by American Funds, DWS and SSGA, which decreased by $25.4 billion, $6.3B and $5.8B, 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 lower again in December.
The January issue of our flagship Money Fund Intelligence newsletter, which was sent to subscribers Wednesday morning, features the articles: "Yields Bottoming Near 4.20%; Assets Keep Breaking Records," which discusses the move lower and plateauing of yields and jumps in assets; "ICI: Worldwide MMF Assets Rise in Q3'24 to $11.2 Tril.," which looks at the latest MMF statistics outside the U.S.; and, "Top Money Funds of 2024; 16th Annual MFI Awards" which reviews the best performing MMFs of 2024. We also sent out our MFI XLS spreadsheet Wednesday a.m., and we've updated our Money Fund Wisdom database with 12/31/24 data. Our Jan. Money Fund Portfolio Holdings are scheduled to ship on Friday, December 10, and our Jan. Bond Fund Intelligence is scheduled to go out on Wednesday, January 15.
Money fund yields (7-day, annualized, simple, net) fell by 2 basis point to 4.25% on average during the week ended Friday, Jan. 3 (as measured by our Crane 100 Money Fund Index), after falling 7 bps the week prior and 7 bps two weeks prior. Fund yields have digested the majority of the Federal Reserve's 25 basis point cut from December 18, though they should continue to move lower in coming days. They've declined by 81 bps since the Fed first cut its Fed funds target rate by 50 bps percent on Sept. 18, and they've declined by 38 bps since the Fed cut rates by 1/4 point on 11/7. Yields were 4.45% on 11/30, 4.65% on average on 10/31, 4.75% on 9/30, 5.10% on 8/31, 5.13% on 7/31 and 6/28, 5.14% on 3/31 and 5.20% on 12/31/23.
It appears that most money market mutual funds will be open on Thursday, January 9, though the New York Stock Exchange and stock markets will close for the National Day of Mourning for the death of former President James "Jimmy" Carter. Money funds had previously closed for the President Bush Day of Mourning but many were open for the President Ford Day of Mourning. So far, Fidelity, BlackRock, J.P. Morgan Asset Management and Federated Hermes have announced that they will be open, though some of BlackRock's retail MMFs will close. Given this news, Crane Data will remain open and will publish our Money Fund Intelligence Daily, MFI International and Form N-MFP Holdings on their usual schedule Thursday.
ICI's latest "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows money fund assets surging $42.1 billion in the last week of the year to a record $6.848 trillion, after jumping $54.7 billion the previous week. Money fund assets have risen in 16 of the last 22, and 27 of the last 37, weeks, increasing by $544.2 billion (or 8.6%) since the Fed cut on 9/18 and increasing by $870.3 billion (or 14.6%) since April 24. MMF assets are up by $961 billion, or 16.3%, in 2024 (through 12/31/24), with Institutional MMFs up $519 billion, or 14.4% and Retail MMFs up $443 billion, or 19.3%. (Note: Thanks to our subscribers and readers for all your support in 2024 and best of luck in 2025. Happy New Year!)
Over the past decade, we've been recapping money market fund lineup changes driven primarily by regulatory reforms in a series of "Roll with the Changes" news items. (Our thanks and apologies to the REO Speedwagon.) At the start of the New Year in many of these years, we'd review the major shifts and changes fund managers made ahead of and around the major rounds of reforms in 2016 and in 2023-24. While 2023 didn't see many exits from Prime MMFs or other shifts in preparation of the latest round of Money Fund Reforms (the year was eventful due to record assets and 5% yields though), 2024 did see a number of shifts and exits. Looking back, a year ago, we wrote "Rolling w/Reform Changes V: Little Change in '23 Ahead of MMF Reforms" (1/5/24), and 3 years ago, we wrote "Rolling w/Reform Changes IV: Recap of '21 Exits & Entries, ESG & News" (1/4/22).
Archives »