Money Market News
Arca Capital Management filed a Form N-1A registration statement for Arca U.S. Treasury Money Market Digital Fund tells us, "Arca U.S. Treasury Money Market Digital Fund seeks to provide investors with as high a level of current income as is consistent with the preservation of shareholders' capital and liquidity. The Fund seeks to maintain a stable $1.00 net asset value (NAV) per share.... The Fund will invest, under normal circumstances, exclusively in U.S. dollar cash, U.S. Treasury bills, notes and bonds with 93 days or less to maturity, overnight repurchase agreements fully collateralized by U.S. Treasury securities, and registered money market funds that themselves invest solely in the foregoing assets." This will be the 6th manager to launch a Stablecoin Reserves money market fund, following BlackRock's Circle Treasury Reserves, and Stablecoin Reserves offerings from State Street, Goldman Sachs, BNY and Fidelity. (See our March 23 News, "Fidelity Files for Reserves Digital Fund, 5th Stablecoin Reserve MMF.")
The Investment Company Institute published a release entitled, "Mutual Fund and ETF Fees Remained Near Historic Lows in 2025," along with the report, "Trends in the Expenses and Fees of Funds, 2025." The full report tells us, "On an asset-weighted basis, average expense ratios incurred by mutual fund investors have fallen substantially over the past 29 years.... In 1996, equity mutual fund investors incurred expense ratios of 1.04 percent, on average, or $1.04 for every $100 in assets. By 2025, that average had fallen to 0.40 percent. Average expense ratios for hybrid and bond mutual funds, as well as money market funds, have also declined meaningfully since 1996."
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission published its latest monthly "Money Market Fund Statistics" summary, which shows that total money fund assets rose by $123.7 billion in February 2026 to a record high $8.341 trillion, after hitting $8.217 trillion the month prior. The SEC shows Prime MMFs increased $18.2 billion in February to $1.383 trillion, Govt & Treasury funds increased $104.5 billion to $6.808 trillion and Tax Exempt funds increased $1.0 billion to $150.1 billion. Taxable yields were lower again in February following declines in January. 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. (Our MFI XLS monthly shows money fund assets increasing $102.3 billion in February 2026 to a record of $8.258 trillion. In March month-to-date through 3/24, total money fund assets have decreased by $26.9 billion to $8.214 trillion, according to Crane Data's separate, and slightly smaller, MFI Daily series.)
A press release titled, "Invesco and Superstate Advance Institutional Tokenization Through USTB Partnership," tells us, "Invesco Ltd., a leading global asset management firm, and Superstate, the premier financial technology firm reshaping capital market infrastructure, ... announced a collaboration in which Invesco Advisers, Inc. will become investment manager of Superstate Short Duration US Government Securities Fund (USTB). USTB, Superstate's tokenized short-duration U.S. treasuries fund, will continue to be powered by Superstate's best-in-class tokenization technology. Through this collaboration, Invesco will become the first asset manager to utilize Superstate's digital transfer agent infrastructure."
Late last week, we hosted our latest Crane's Bond Fund Symposium in Boston. The keynote talk, "Ultra‐Short Bond Funds: Spring Break," featured J.P. Morgan Securities' Teresa Ho and PIMCO's Jerome Schneider. Schneider comments, "First of all, thanks for being here. Once again, it's obviously a great forum to see friends. And it's important, not just because of where we are today, and we can talk about the factors of where the economy is going and waking up every moment to see where rates are going, things like that. But I think importantly, from a logical point of view, what we do here is probably emphasized as calm amongst a storm of uncertainty ... for the broader landscape. So, my [role at] PIMCO is running short-term low duration strategies in addition to some of our portable alpha strategies.... From that vantage point, I think about the best way to optimize cash and ... shorter duration type of fixed income allocations." (Note: Thanks again to those who supported Bond Fund Symposium! Attendees and Crane Data subscribers may access the conference binder, Powerpoints and recordings via our "Bond Fund Symposium 2026 Download Center.")
Fidelity Investments is the 5th money fund manager to launch a Stablecoin Reserves money market fund, following BlackRock's Circle Treasury Reserves, and Stablecoin Reserves offerings from State Street, Goldman Sachs and BNY. A Form N-1A Registration Statement tells us, "Fidelity Reserves Digital Fund seeks to obtain as high a level of current income as is consistent with the preservation of capital and liquidity." (Note: Thank you to those who attended and supported our Bond Fund Symposium last week in Boston! Attendees and Crane Data subscribers may access the conference materials via our Bond Fund Symposium 2026 Download Center.)
The Federal Reserve released its latest quarterly "Z.1 Financial Accounts of the United States" statistical survey (a.k.a. "Flow of Funds") recently, and among the 4 tables it includes on money market mutual funds, the Fourth Quarter 2025 edition shows that Total MMF Assets increased by $416 billion to $8.190 trillion in Q4'25. The Household Sector, by far the largest investor segment with $5.321 trillion, saw the biggest asset increase in Q4, followed by Nonfinancial Corporate Business and Other Financial Business (formerly Funding Corps). The Fed's latest Z.1 numbers, which contain one of the few looks at money fund investor segments available, also showed noticeable increases for the Mutual Funds and Rest of the World categories in Q4 2025. (Note: Thank you to those who attended and supported our Bond Fund Symposium this week in Boston! Attendees and Crane Data subscribers may access the conference materials via our Bond Fund Symposium 2026 Download Center.)
Money market mutual fund assets jumped by $36.1 billion on Tuesday (March 17) to a record high of $8.276 trillion, according to our Money Fund Intelligence Daily. Assets have risen $34.6 billion in the week through Tuesday, and they've increased by $34.6 billion in March month-to-date (through 3/17). MMF assets increased by $99.5 billion in February, $32.9 billion in January, $126.3 billion in December, $132.8 billion in November, $142.1 billion in October, $105.2 billion in September and $132.0 billion in August. They rose by $63.7 billion in July, $6.7 billion in June and $100.9 billion in May. But MMFs decreased $24.4 billion in April and increased by $2.8 billion last March. (Note: For those attending our Bond Fund Symposium, which takes place March 19-20, welcome to Boston! Attendees and Crane Data subscribers may access the conference materials via our Bond Fund Symposium 2026 Download Center.
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 March 13) includes Holdings information from 57 money funds (up 3 from two weeks ago), or $4.044 trillion (up from $3.593 trillion) of the $8.222 trillion in total money fund assets (or 49.2%) 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 March 11 News, "March MF Portfolio Holdings: Assets, Treasuries, Repo & Agencies All Up.") (Note too: There's still time to register for our Bond Fund Symposium, which is later this week, March 19-20, in Boston, Mass. Attendees and Crane Data subscribers may access the conference materials via our Bond Fund Symposium 2026 Download Center. Safe travels to those attending and see you soon!)
Federated Hermes' Chairman & CEO Chris Donahue spoke last week at the 2026 RBC Capital Markets Global Financial Institutions Conference," and comments on tokenization, "The BNY, Goldman deal is where we have our regular fund. BNY makes a token. The token invests, in effect, money in the fund, so the money fund's the same as it was five minutes ago, and it participates in Goldman's platform. That's another whole deal. Archax is one we're doing in Europe. It's about the same as the BNY Goldman setup. We have the structures inside to actually tokenize a money fund." (Note: There's still time to register for our Bond Fund Symposium, which is later this week, March 19-20, in Boston, Mass. Attendees and Crane Data subscribers may access the conference materials via our Bond Fund Symposium 2026 Download Center. Safe travels to those attending and see you soon!)
Crane Data's latest Money Fund Intelligence International shows that assets in European or "offshore" money market mutual funds decreased over the past 30 days to $1.652 trillion, falling from a record $1.662 trillion the month prior. Yields were mostly lower, while assets for USD, EUR and GBP MMFs all fell over the past month. Like U.S. money fund assets, European MMFs have repeatedly hit record highs in 2023, 2024 and 2025 (after a pause in Q2'25). These U.S.-style money funds, domiciled in Ireland or Luxembourg and denominated in US Dollars, Pound Sterling and Euros, decreased by $9.9 billion over the 30 days through 3/12. The totals are up $68.0 billion (4.3%) year-to-date for 2026. They were up $151.9 billion (10.6%) for 2025, 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 USD. 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.) (Note too: Mark your calendars for our next European Money Fund Symposium, which will be held Sept. 24-25 in Paris, France. Watch for the preliminary agenda to be released in coming weeks.)
The March issue of our Bond Fund Intelligence, which will be sent to subscribers Friday a.m., features the articles, "Vanguard Examines Bond Index Funds and Tracking," which reviews a paper on the challenges of managing funds to an index; and "Invesco Launches Four More Bond ETFs: Flex, MBS, Hybrid," which covers the launch of several new fixed income ETFs. BFI also recaps the latest Bond Fund News and includes our Crane BFI Indexes, which show that bond fund returns jumped again while yields were mixed in February. 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 next week for our upcoming Bond Fund Symposium, which is March 19-20 in Boston, Mass.)
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