Money Market News
The website RIABiz writes, "Schwab Chases BlackRock Out of the Gate with Money Market ETF." The article states, "Charles Schwab & Co. just filed with the SEC to launch a money market fund (MMF) ETF, which could undercut BlackRock's similar launch six weeks ago -- but not without possibly validating the brazen interloper in the bargain. The Westlake, Texas brokerage is seeking Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approval to launch the Schwab Government Money Market ETF (SGVT), by May 28. It's a fairly carbon-copy move of BlackRock's two Feb. 4 ETF releases." (Note: For those attending our Bond Fund Symposium later this week, March 27-28, in Newport Beach, Calif, attendees and Crane Data subscribers may access the BFS Conference Materials here.)
The Investment Company Institute published, "Worldwide Regulated Open-Fund Assets and Flows, Fourth Quarter 2024," Friday, which shows that money fund assets globally rose by $382.8 billion, or 3.4%, in Q4'24 to a record $11.598 trillion. (The totals would have been $11.871 trillion if Australia and New Zealand had been included.) Increases were led by a sharp jump in money funds in U.S. and Luxembourg, while Ireland and China also rose. Meanwhile, money funds in France and Korea were lower. MMF assets worldwide increased by $1.157 trillion, or 11.1%, in the 12 months through 12/31/24, and money funds in the U.S. now represent 59.1% of worldwide assets. We review the latest Worldwide MMF totals, below. (Note: For those attending our Bond Fund Symposium March 27-28, Attendees and Crane Data Subscribers may access the BFS Conference Materials here.)
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 $101.8 billion in February 2025 to a record $7.388 trillion. Assets increased $47.9 billion in January, $113.2 billion in December, $197.8 billion in November, $93.3 billion in October, and $166.6 billion in September 2024. The SEC shows Prime MMFs increased $15.4 billion in February to $1.234 trillion, Govt & Treasury funds increased $85.6 billion to $6.015 trillion and Tax Exempt funds increased $0.8 billion to $139.2 billion. Taxable yields continued to decline in February after previous decreases in January and December. 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 rising $97.9 billion in February 2025 to a record $7.332 trillion. In March month-to-date through 3/19, total money fund assets have increased by $18.1 billion to $7.339 trillion, according to Crane Data's separate, and slightly smaller, MFI Daily series.) (Note: Many of the Powerpoints for next week's Bond Fund Symposium, which is March 27-28 in Newport Beach, Calif., are now available to registered attendees and Crane Data subscribers via the Bond Fund Symposium 2025 Download Center. The recordings will be posted after the show.)
J.P. Morgan writes in a new "Mid-Week US Short Duration Update" that "Low-duration bond funds see strong inflows to start the year." They explain, "Low-duration bond funds have had a strong start to the year, both in terms of inflows and returns. According to the funds we track, collective inflows over the first two months have reached nearly $25bn, marking a 3% increase from December's month-end levels, with total balances now at $850bn. The majority of these inflows occurred in February, which saw a significant increase of $15bn, the largest monthly inflow since early 2021. During this month, all strategies experienced growth in balances, with short term credit funds witnessing the most inflows, amounting to about $4bn. This was closely followed by ultra-short multi-asset funds and ultra-short credit, each attracting $3bn, along with short-term multi-asset and short-term government funds, which each received $2bn." (Note: J.P. Morgan's Teresa Ho, who authored this piece, will lead the keynote address at next week's Bond Fund Symposium, March 27-28 in Newport Beach, Calif. She will be joined by PIMCO's Jerome Schneider and J.P. Morgan Asset Management's Dave Martucci. We're still taking registrations!)
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 14) includes Holdings information from 57 money funds (up 2 from two weeks ago), or $3.551 trillion (up from $3.133 trillion) of the $7.326 trillion in total money fund assets (or 48.5%) 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 12 News, "March Money Fund Portfolio Holdings: Repo Surges, Treasuries Plunge.") (Please join us for next week's Bond Fund Symposium, which is March 27-28 in Newport Beach, Calif.)
Crane Data's latest Money Fund Intelligence International shows that assets in European or "offshore" money market mutual funds inched higher again over the past 30 days to a record $1.499 trillion, while yields continued lower. Assets for USD MMFs rose over the past month while EUR and GBP moved down. 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 $9.8 billion over the 30 days through 3/14. The totals are up $66.9 billion (4.7%) 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 March issue of our Bond Fund Intelligence, which was sent to subscribers Saturday, features the stories, "EFAMA Says 2024 Record Year for ETFs, MMFs; Bond Funds," which covers a recent press release from EFAMA, and "Vanguard Examines Bond Index Fund Tracking Costs," which excerpts from a recent Vanguard research paper. BFI also recaps the latest Bond Fund News and includes our Crane BFI Indexes, which show that bond fund returns up again in February while yields were slightly lower. 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 released its latest quarterly "Z.1 Financial Accounts of the United States" statistical survey (a.k.a. "Flow of Funds") yesterday, and among the 4 tables it includes on money market mutual funds, the Fourth Quarter 2024 edition shows that Total MMF Assets increased by $404 billion to $7.243 trillion in Q4'24. The Household Sector, by far the largest investor segment with $4.600 trillion, saw the biggest asset increase in Q4, followed by Nonfinancial Corporate Businesses. 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 Other Financial Business (formerly Funding Corps) and Rest of the World categories in Q4 2024. (Note: For those attending our upcoming Bond Fund Symposium, which is March 27-28, 2025 in Newport Beach, Calif., we look forward to seeing you! See you in two weeks!)
Last week, J.P. Morgan Securities published a brief titled, "Taking a closer look at the ABCP market." They tell us, "After nearly a decade of stagnation, the ABCP market is experiencing somewhat of a resurgence in activity. For years, market outstandings bounced around $200-$250bn, but since 2021 they have been steadily on the rise, registering $425bn as of February month-end.... Notably, fueling the growth of this sector has not been the traditional bank sponsored, multi-seller conduits. Instead, it has been driven by collateral-backed ABCP programs such as independent sponsored ABCP and bank sponsored CCP programs." (Note: Please join us for our upcoming Bond Fund Symposium, which is March 27-28 in Newport Beach, Calif!)
Crane Data's March Money Fund Portfolio Holdings, with data as of Feb. 28, 2025, show that holdings of Repo jumped sharply last month while Treasuries plummeted. Money market securities held by Taxable U.S. money funds (tracked by Crane Data) increased by $53.7 billion to $7.227 trillion in February, after increasing $84.1 billion in January, $88.0 billion in December, $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, still the largest segment, decreased $118.3 billion in February after increasing $92.1 billion in January and decreasing $69.5 billion in December. Repo, the second largest portfolio composition segment, increased by $173.9 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 Tuesday, and we'll be writing our regular monthly update on the new February data for Wednesday'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 Monday. (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 February 28, includes holdings information from 989 money funds (up 6 from last month), representing assets of $7.388 trillion (up from $7.250 trillion 2 months ago). Prime MMFs rose to $1.107 trillion (up from $1.065 trillion), or 15.0% 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 $19.4 billion (annualized) in February. (Note: Please join us for our upcoming Bond Fund Symposium, which is March 27-28 in Newport Beach, Calif!)
Crane Data's latest monthly Money Fund Market Share rankings show assets increasing again among most of the largest U.S. money fund complexes in February, after rising in January, December, November, October, September, August, July, June and May. Assets fell in March and April. Money market fund assets rose by $90.5 billion, or 1.3%, last month to a record $7.322 trillion. Total MMF assets have increased by $253.9 billion, or 3.6%, over the past 3 months, and they've increased by $850.2 billion, or 13.1%, over the past 12 months. The largest increases among the 25 largest managers last month were seen by Schwab, BlackRock, Fidelity, Vanguard and American Funds, which grew assets by $14.5 billion, $13.8B, $12.4B, $11.2B and $10.2B, respectively. Declines in February were seen by Dreyfus, Northern, HSBC and DWS, which decreased by $5.7 billion, $4.5B, $1.2B and $392M, 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 slightly lower in February.
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