Outflows Continue to Plague Muni Money Funds

Tax-exempt money market funds suffered losses for the fifth consecutive week as $2.40 billion escaped the industry in the week ended Feb. 11 and total net assets finished with $280.07 billion, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

In the previous week, by comparison, although outflows tapered off to $201.3 million they came on the heels of significant losses of between $2 billion and $4 billion in the three prior weeks.

The average, seven-day simple yield for the 431 reporting tax-exempt funds remained at 0.01% for the second week in a row, while the average maturity increased by one day to 32 from the prior week.

Meanwhile, investors withdrew a whopping $3.54 billion from the 1,039 taxable reporting money funds as total net assets shrunk to $2.389 trillion in the week ended Feb. 12. That is only slightly less than the $3.93 billion that fled the taxable funds in the prior week when total net assets settled at $2.393 trillion.

The average, seven-day simple yield for the taxable money funds was unchanged from the previous week at 0.02%, while the average maturity rose by one day to 48 days from the prior week.

Overall the combined total net assets of the 1,470 reporting money funds settled at $2.669 trillion after investors yanked an eye-popping $5.95 billion from the industry in the week ended Feb. 12, which compares to the previous week when total net assets settled at $2.675 trillion after outflows of $4.14 billion.

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Fixed income
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