Muni Money Fund Outflows Ease to $4.44B

Tax-exempt money market fund outflows ebbed by nearly $1 billion this week, but still saw $4.44 billion pour out of the market as funds settled with $358.65 billion in total assets for the week ending April 26, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

The losses followed last week’s $5.42 billion outflow, which left the funds with $363.0 billion — the biggest decline of the year since Jan. 19, when investors yanked $7.66 billion.

The average, seven-day simple yield for the 495 tax-exempt funds reporting this week remained unchanged at 0.04%, while the average maturity declined by one day to 25 days.

Meanwhile, in the taxable market, total assets of the 1,169 reporting funds edged up $4.14 billion to $2.49 trillion, a huge turnaround from last week’s hemorrhaging of $52.72 billion to $2.486 trillion as many investors liquidated to pay tax liabilities. The average, seven-day simple yield among taxable funds held steady at 0.03% for a second week in a row.

The losses in the tax-exempt market and the gains among taxable funds came prior to Wednesday’s action by the Federal Open Market Committee to again hold the federal funds rate target in the 0% and 0.25% range.

Overall, the combined assets of the 1,664 funds in the report declined by just $297 million and settled at $2.8493 trillion in total assets for the week ending April 27. That was just slightly less than the prior week, which saw assets fall $58.14 billion to $2.8496 trillion.

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