Money Market News
Northern Trust (NTRS) released its Q3'25 earnings and hosted its latest earnings conference call earlier this week. CEO Mike O'Grady says, "The third quarter was marked by product innovation, including the launch of 11 new ETF strategies, eight of which are industry-first fixed-income distributing ladder ETFs.... Liquidity continues to be a standout area, with NTAM reporting its 11th consecutive quarter of positive flows. We expanded our Global Money Market Fund platform in the quarter with the launch of a U.S. Dollar Treasury liquidity strategy for European clients, building on the success of our onshore U.S. Treasury instrument strategy, which has already amassed more than $6 billion since its launch in June of 2024. Beyond liquidity, we saw positive flows in ETFs and custom SMAs, both key areas of focus, and fixed income, including two large high-yield mandates."
Charles Schwab also released Q3'25 earnings and hosted its 2025 Fall Business Update late last week. CFO Mike Verdeschi tells us, "Client cash levels continue to reflect normal behavior, inclusive of organic growth, seasonality and strong client engagement as equity markets reached record levels. We made further progress in reducing supplemental borrowings, which ended the quarter at $14.8 billion or just within the upper bound of our business as usual range.... Bank deposit account fees moved higher year-over-year due to an improved net yield as lower-yielding fixed-rate obligations continue to mature and converted into the floating rate bucket. September marked an inflection point for the BDA as we transition into the new $60 billion to $90 billion operating range for the remainder of the agreement and we gained the flexibility to move balances between the BDA and our balance sheet. During the third quarter, we transferred $3 billion worth of balances to Schwab to accelerate the paydown of bank supplemental borrowings."
BNY released its third quarter earnings late last week, and the giant custodial bank discussed money markets, stablecoins and tokenized money markets on its earnings call. President & CEO Robin Vince tells us, "Our early commitment to the digital asset space, paired with the principles of safety, scalability and innovation that have defined BNY for centuries, now positions us to support the growing institutional adoption of digital asset products. In just one example from this past quarter, OpenEden, a leading platform for the tokenization of real-world assets, headquartered in Singapore, appointed BNY as investment manager and primary custodian for the underlying assets of its flagship Tokenized U.S. Treasury Bills Fund."
Money fund yields (7-day, annualized, simple, net) increased by 2 bps to 3.93% on average during the week ended Friday, October 17 (as measured by our Crane 100 Money Fund Index), after falling 3 bps the week prior. Fund yields should continue to inch lower in the coming weeks as they finish digesting the Fed's Sept. 17 25 bps cut, and they should move lower again if, as expected, the Fed cuts again on October 29. They've declined by 113 bps since the Fed first cut in the Fed funds target rate by 50 bps on Sept. 18, 2024, and they've declined by 70 bps since the Fed cut rates by 1/4 point on 11/7/24. Yields were 3.94% on 9/30, 4.11% on 8/31, 4.12% on 7/31, 4.13% on 6/30, 4.10% on 5/31, 4.13% on 4/30/25, 4.14% on 3/31/25 and 4.28% on average on 12/31/24. MMFs averaged 4.75% on 9/30/24, 5.10% on 6/28/24, 5.14% on 3/31/24 and 5.20% on 12/31/23.
Barron's writes that, "Money-Market ETFs Have Arrived. Should You Buy One?" They explain, "Not too long ago, investors who wanted to park cash in an exchange-traded fund version of a money-market mutual fund had to settle for ultrashort-dated bond ETFs as a proxy. That has changed with the recent launch of a few money-market ETFs, which have quickly gained assets, even as the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates. The handful of money-market ETFs include the $3.4 billion Simplify Government Money Market, the $361.2 million iShares Prime Money Market, the $269.3 million Schwab Government Money Market, the $77.2 million iShares Government Money Market, and the $60 million Texas Capital Government Money Market, which kicked off the category when it launched in September 2024."
A press release titled, "BlackRock Introduces '40 Act 2a7 Money Market Fund in GENIUS-aligned Form," is subtitled, "As BlackRock's cash management business surpasses $1 trillion in assets under management, the firm introduces a GENIUS Act-aligned '40 Act 2a-7 money market fund to meet growing demand in the stablecoin market." It tells us, "BlackRock announced a strategic update to one of its money market funds, reflecting a refined investment approach designed to enhance liquidity, align with emerging regulatory frameworks, and support the evolving needs of clients." (Note: As of Sept. 30, Crane Data shows BlackRock with $665.6 billion in U.S. money funds and $342.4 billion in European or "offshore" money funds, for a total of $1.008 trillion.)
Crane Data's latest Money Fund Intelligence International shows that assets in European or "offshore" money market mutual funds increased over the past 30 days to a new record high $1.558 trillion, rising from $1.543 trillion the month prior. Yields inched lower, while assets for USD and EUR MMFs rose and GBP MMFs fell over the past month. Like U.S. money fund assets, European MMFs repeatedly hit record highs in 2023, 2024 and 2025 (after a pause in Q2). These U.S.-style money funds, domiciled in Ireland or Luxembourg and denominated in US Dollars, Pound Sterling and Euros, increased by $15.3 billion over the 30 days through 10/14. The totals are up $125.5 billion (8.8%) 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 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.)
The October issue of our Bond Fund Intelligence, which was sent to subscribers Wednesday a.m., features the stories, "Worldwide BF Assets Jump to $15.2 Trillion, Led by US, China," which reviews the latest global bond fund statistics from ICI; and "Lupini, Rustam Talk European Ultra-Shorts at EMFS Dublin," which highlights a session from our 11th annual European Money Fund Symposium held in Dublin, Ireland. BFI also recaps the latest Bond Fund News and includes our Crane BFI Indexes, which show that bond fund returns rose again in September while yields fell. 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.)
The Bank of Canada published, "An update on the Canadian money market mutual fund sector," which tells us, "Money market mutual funds, also called money market funds (MMFs), are open-ended mutual funds that hold cash and invest in short-term, high-quality debt securities. They aim to provide their investors with stable returns and high liquidity and allow the daily withdrawal of funds. Investors use MMFs for different reasons, including: to park cash between investments; to place their money in a safe investment during periods of market turmoil; and, to earn higher interest than traditional deposit accounts. MMFs facilitate credit intermediation by moving cash from households and institutions to borrowers such as governments and corporations. Thus, they provide an important source of short-term funding."
Crane Data's October Money Fund Portfolio Holdings, with data as of Sept. 30, 2025, show that holdings of Repo and Treasuries both jumped. Money market securities held by Taxable U.S. money funds (tracked by Crane Data) increased by $56.1 billion to $7.595 trillion in September, after increasing $166.6 billion in August, $17.6 billion in July, $84.0 billion in June and $72.0 billion in May. They decreased by $73.8 billion in April. Assets rose by $45.6 billion in March, $53.7 billion in February, $84.1 billion in January and $88.0 billion in December. Treasuries, the largest portfolio composition segment, increased by $78.0 billion. Repo, the second largest segment, increased $27.2 billion in September. Agencies were the third largest segment, and 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 Thursday, and we'll be writing our regular monthly update on the new October data for Friday'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 Wednesday. (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 971 money funds (down 17 from last month), representing assets of $7.766 trillion (up from $7.701 trillion a month ago). Prime MMFs rose to $1.206 trillion (up from $1.193 trillion), or 15.5% 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 $20.5 billion (annualized) in September.
Crane Data's latest monthly Money Fund Market Share rankings show assets sharply higher among the largest U.S. money fund complexes in September after also jumping in August. Assets have increased in 14 of the past 15 months (only April 2025 saw a decline). Money market fund assets rose by $100.6 billion, or 1.3%, last month to a record $7.708 trillion. Total MMF assets have increased by $294.2 billion, or 4.0%, over the past 3 months, and they've increased by $934.4 billion, or 13.8%, over the past 12 months. The largest increases among the 25 largest managers last month were seen by State Street, Fidelity, BNY Dreyfus, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, which grew assets by $28.7 billion, $25.5B, $12.4B, $12.3B and $12.1B, respectively. Declines in September were seen by DWS, American Funds, AllianceBernstein, Invesco and Columbia, which decreased by $6.8 billion, $3.3B, $2.4B, $2.4B and $1.9B, 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.
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