Reuters writes "UK to tighten money market fund rules by end of year." The article explains, "Britain will impose tougher rules later this year on money market funds, which have been a focus of regulators since market turmoil in March 2020, when they were hit by heavy redemptions during a COVID-19-induced 'dash for cash'. Legislation will establish a new regulatory framework with the expectation that the 300 billion pound ($405 billion) sterling money market fund sector will hold more liquid assets, the government said in a statement [earlier this month]." (See our May 18 News, "EC Report Proposes Higher Weekly Liquidity Levels for European MMFs;" our May 15 News, "European Money Fund Assets Inch Down to $1.67 Tril; MFI Intl Holdings," which says, 'The FCA, which regulates markets in the U.K., published a policy paper titled, 'Reforms to Money Market Fund Regulations;'' and our May 26 News, "European Money Fund Symposium Heads to Paris, Sept. 24-25; CD Events.")
It says, "Britain's financial regulator consulted on reforms in 2023 that aimed to make it easier for funds to sell assets, opens new tab in periods of stress, following a recommendation from the Bank of England that the sector needed to be more resilient. In its latest Financial Stability Report, the BoE said money market funds are vulnerable in periods of stress because investors can withdraw cash faster than some of the funds' less liquid assets can be sold, leaving them exposed to sudden waves of redemptions."
Reuters writes, "The government ... said that the Financial Conduct Authority would issue a statement shortly with further details of the plans, which are subject to parliamentary approval and aim to take into account the cross-border nature of the sector. The European Commission on Monday published new guidance for money market funds, setting out how liquidity buffers should be used to meet redemption requests during times of market stress."
In other news, 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 May 22) includes Holdings information from 74 money funds (up 19 from a week ago), or $4.687 trillion (up from $3.562 trillion) of the $8.207 trillion in total money fund assets (or 57.1%) tracked by Crane Data. (Note: 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 May 12 News, "May MF Portfolio Holdings: Treasuries Plunge, Repo and Agencies Rise.")
Our latest Weekly MFPH Composition summary shows Government assets dominating the holdings list with Treasuries totaling $2.063 trillion (up from $1.539 trillion a week ago), or 44.0%; Repurchase Agreements (Repo) totaling $1.710 trillion (up from $1.352 trillion a week ago), or 36.5%, and Government Agency securities totaling $494.0 billion (up from $406.3 billion a week ago), or 10.5%. Commercial Paper (CP) totaled $166.6 billion (up from $93.0 billion a week ago), or 3.6%. Certificates of Deposit (CDs) totaled $104.9 billion (up from $44.7 billion a week ago), or 2.2%. The Other category accounted for $91.0 billion or 1.9%, while VRDNs accounted for $58.2 billion or 1.2%.
The Ten Largest Issuers in our Weekly Holdings product include: the US Treasury with $2.063 trillion, Fixed Income Clearing Corp with $588.5B, the Federal Home Loan Bank with $294.9B, JP Morgan with $166.6B, Citi with $118.4B, Federal Farm Credit Bank with $116.9B, RBC with $116.7B, BNP Paribas with $106.7B, Wells Fargo with $93.8B and Barclays PLC with $63.9B.
The Ten Largest Funds tracked in our latest Weekly include: JPMorgan US Govt MM ($336.1B), JPMorgan 100% US Trs MM ($331.3B), Goldman Sachs FS Govt ($277.8B), Fidelity Inv MM: Govt Port ($269.9B), Morgan Stanley Inst Liq Govt ($222.5B), State Street Inst US Govt ($210.4B), BlackRock Lq FedFund ($187.3B), Federated Hermes Govt ObI ($180.0B), BlackRock Lq Treas Tr ($178.9B) and Fidelity Inv MM: MM Port ($163.7B). (Let us know if you'd like to see our latest domestic U.S. and/or "offshore" Weekly Portfolio Holdings collection and summary.)
In other news,
