Money Funds Once Again Have Their Day in the Sun

The "Rodney Dangerfields" of the mutual fund world over the past number of years, receiving little respect, money market funds, once again, are finally having their day in the sun, the Sun-Sentinel reports.

Boosted by the Federal Reserve's increases in the short-term rate over the past 20 months and the anticipation that the Fed will continue to increase rates, many money market funds now sport yields of 4% or more -- close to the 4.5% return of two-year bonds, the 4.7% return of 30-year bonds and the 4.8% that the Standard & Poor's 500 Index returned in 2005.

In the 1980s and the 1990s, as the stock market zoomed, money market funds were derided as "cash is trash." Then, during the bear market of 2000-2003, with the Fed cutting the overnight bank rate to 1%, the yields on money market funds shrank to even less than that.