Tax-exempt money market funds reported losses of $5.61 billion — the largest weekly decline in assets in four years — as total net assets fell to $261.10 billion in the week ended April 21, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.
The losses were the most since $7.66 billion of outflows were reported on Jan. 18, 2010, and total net assets fell to $393.62 billion. The flows are the largest year to date in 2014, and are up from last week's losses of $3.67 billion.
The outflows mirror a seasonal pattern that has occurred annually in the second half of April in the past five years, according to Mike Krasner, managing editor of iMoneyNet Inc. "The April 15 tax deadline would seem to be a logical assumption for the reason behind it," he said.
The outflows in April represented a 2.1% weekly decline for the same week both this year and last, he noted.
The average seven-day yield for the 420 weekly reporting money market funds remained at 0.01%, while the average maturity decline by one day to 31 days compared to the prior week.
The total net assets of the 1,016 weekly reporting taxable money market funds, meanwhile, increased by $7.64 billion to $2.343 trillion in the week ended April 22, which compares to outflows of $35.57 billion in the previous week.
The average seven day simple yield for the taxable funds was unchanged at 0.01%, while the average maturity fell one day to 45 days compared to the previous week.
The combined total net assets of the 1,436 weekly reporting money funds inched up by $2.02 billion to $2.604 trillion in the week ended April 22 after reporting losses of $39.23 billion in the prior week.
