Money Market News
The Association for Financial Professionals published its "2021 AFP Liquidity Survey," yesterday. A press release, entitled, "Significant Increase in Cash Holdings Within the U.S. Attributed to Pandemic Continues," tells us, "As organizations gradually recover from the liquidity crisis due to the coronavirus pandemic, there is a large focus on preserving their cash and safeguarding against any future uncertainty, according to the 2021 AFP Liquidity Survey, underwritten by Invesco."
This month, MFI speaks with Christopher Tufts, the new Global Head of Portfolio Management and Trading for the money market fund business at J.P. Morgan Asset Management. Tufts had been Head of Portfolio Management for the U.S. funds before taking on an expanded role late last year. We discuss the current rate environment, supply and pending regulatory issues, among other things. Our Q&A follows. (Note: The following is reprinted from the June issue of Money Fund Intelligence, which was published on June 7. Contact us at info@cranedata.com to request the full issue or to subscribe.)
The OMFIF, or Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, which calls itself "an independent think tank for central banking, economic policy and public investment," released a report (in partnership with Federated Hermes) entitled, "The future of money market funds." They write on, "The need for constructive dialogue," and comment, "OMFIF has conducted a thorough review of what happened in the money markets in March 2020, and whether the current ideas mooted by a host of national and international policy-makers to 'fix' money market funds would have the desired effects. We have spoken to a wide range of industry participants, former policymakers, market regulators, lawyers and academics and taken on board their views. This paper is the result of that research." (Note: Thanks again to those who attended our "Asian Money Fund Symposium" webinar last week. For anyone who missed it, the replay is available here, and the materials are available to subscribers via our "Money Fund Webinar 2021 Download Center.)
The Investment Company Institute published, "Worldwide Regulated Open-Fund Assets and Flows, First Quarter 2021," which shows that money fund assets globally rose by $164.6 billion, or 2.0%, in Q1'21 to $8.479 trillion. The increase was driven by big jumps in U.S. and Chinese money market fund assets, but European assets plunged. MMF assets worldwide increased by $791.4 billion, or 10.3%, in the 12 months through 3/31/21, and money funds in the U.S. now represent 53.0% of worldwide assets. We review the latest Worldwide MMF totals, below. (Note: Thanks to our speakers and to those who attended our "Asian Money Fund Symposium" webinar. The replay is available here for those that missed it, and watch for the materials to be posted to our "Money Fund Webinar 2021 Download Center soon.)
The Securities and Exchange Commission's latest monthly "Money Market Fund Statistics" summary shows that total money fund assets increased $72.4 billion in May to $5.112 trillion. (Month-to-date in June assets are down $15.4 billion through 6/15, according to our MFI Daily.) The SEC shows that Prime MMFs fell by $14.6 billion in May to $914.6 billion, Govt & Treasury funds increased $90.3 billion to $4.096 trillion and Tax Exempt funds decreased $3.3 billion to $101.5 billion. Yields were down again in May. 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. (Last Call: Register for this morning's "Asian Money Fund Symposium" webinar, Thursday, June 17 from 10:00am-12:00pm EDT.)
Bloomberg published, "Drowning in Cash, Money Markets Seek Another Life Raft From Fed." Authors Alexandra Harris and Benjamin Purvis write, "More and more, investors are wondering whether the Federal Reserve will tweak its monetary policy toolkit to help out money markets that are starting to drown in a sea of cash. The Fed's existing facilities have helped alleviate the impact of the growing dollar glut in short-term funding markets that's outstripping the supply of investable securities and weighing down front-end rates. But officials can only continue to do so if money-market funds, which help funnel more than $4 trillion of cash investments into short-term instruments, are functioning properly. Now, some are now wondering how long the Fed can stem the effects of the growing cash pile if it doesn't adjust some of the auxiliary rates it uses to help steer markets -- including the zero yield it offers through its reverse repurchase agreement operations." (Reminder: Register for our "Asian Money Fund Symposium" webinar, which is Thursday, June 17 from 10:00am-12:00pm Eastern.)
The June issue of our Bond Fund Intelligence, which was sent to subscribers Monday morning, features the lead story, "Bond Fund Assets Hit $5.4T; Bond ETFs Over $1.1 Trillion," which covers the continued inflows into the bond fund market; and "Wells Fargo A.M.'s Roberts on Sustainable Investing," which quotes from an ESG piece in Wells' latest Income Generator. BFI also recaps the latest Bond Fund News and includes our Crane BFI Indexes, which show that bond fund returns jumped while yields were flat in May. We excerpt from the new issue below. (Note: Please join us later this week for our "Asian Money Fund Symposium" webinar, which will take place Thursday, June 17 from 10:00am-12:00pm Eastern.)
The Federal Reserve released its latest quarterly "Z.1 Financial Accounts of the United States" statistical survey (a.k.a. "Flow of Funds") Thursday. Among the 4 tables it includes on money market mutual funds, the First Quarter 2021 edition shows that Total MMF Assets increased by $164 billion to $4.500 trillion in Q1'21. The Household Sector, by far the largest investor segment with $2.783 trillion, saw assets jump in Q1. The second largest segment, Nonfinancial Corporate Businesses, experienced a drop in assets. The Fed's latest Z.1 numbers, which contain one of the few looks at money fund investor segments available, show asset decreases in MMF holdings for the Nonfiancial Corporate Business and Life Insurance Companies categories in Q1 2021. (Reminder: Register for our upcoming "Asian Money Fund Symposium" webinar, which takes place next Thursday, June 17 from 10am-12pm Eastern.)
Crane Data's June Money Fund Portfolio Holdings, with data as of May 31, 2021, show a huge increase in Repo holdings and a giant drop in Treasuries. Money market securities held by Taxable U.S. money funds (tracked by Crane Data) rose $30.2 billion to $4.947 trillion in May, after rising $29.1 billion in April and $187.5 billion in March. Treasury securities remained the largest portfolio segment, followed by Repo, then Agencies. CP remained fourth, ahead of CD , Other/Time Deposits and VRDNs. Below, we review our latest Money Fund Portfolio Holdings statistics. (Note: Please join us next Thursday, June 17 from 10am-12pm Eastern, for our "Asian Money Fund Symposium" webinar.)
Crane Data's latest monthly Money Fund Portfolio Holdings statistics will be sent out Wednesday, and we'll be writing our normal monthly update on the May 31 data for Thursday's News. But we also published a separate and broader Portfolio Holdings data set based on the SEC's Form N-MFP filings on Tuesday. (We continue to merge the two series, and the N-MFP version is now available via Holding file listings to Money Fund Wisdom subscribers.) Our new N-MFP summary, with data as of May 31, 2021 includes holdings information from 1,029 money funds (down 13 from last month), representing assets of $5.098 trillion (up from $5.034 trillion). Prime MMFs now total $905.5 billion, or 17.8% of the total. We review the new N-MFP data below, and we also look at our revised MMF expense data.
Crane Data's latest Money Fund Market Share rankings show assets were higher among the majority of the largest U.S. money fund complexes in May. Money market fund assets increased $70.4 billion, or 1.4%, last month to $5.063 trillion. Assets have increased by $282.9 billion, or 5.9%, over the past 3 months, and they've decreased by $158.4 billion, or -3.1%, over the past 12 months through May 31, 2021. The biggest increases among the 25 largest managers last month were seen by JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Northern and Dreyfus, which grew assets by $25.5 billion, $14.5B, $13.8B, $11.9B and $10.1B, respectively. But declines in May were seen by Federated, Vanguard, Goldman Sachs, Schwab and First American, which decreased by $11.0 billion, $10.1B, $6.8B, $3.8B and $710M, 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 below, and we also look at money fund yields in May.
The June issue of our flagship Money Fund Intelligence newsletter, which was sent to subscribers Monday morning, features the articles: "Asset Growth Continues, But No Yields in Sight; Record RRP," which tracks the continued jumps in assets despite yields sitting at rock bottom; "J.P. Morgan A.M.'s Chris Tufts: Focused on Core Deliverables," which profiles the new JPMAM Head of Liquidity; and, "Boston Fed Proposes Only Govt MMFs; Already 80%," which highlights the possibility of banning Prime MMFs. We also sent out our MFI XLS spreadsheet Monday a.m., and updated our Money Fund Wisdom database query system with 5/31/21 data. (MFI, MFI XLS and our Crane Index products are all available to subscribers via our Content center.) Our June Money Fund Portfolio Holdings are scheduled to ship on Wednesday, June 9, and our June Bond Fund Intelligence is scheduled to go out Monday, June 14.
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