Funds See Outflows for First Time in 10 Weeks

After 10 consecutive weeks of record inflows into municipal money market funds, outflows of $286.6 million were reported for the week ending Dec. 17. The decrease in assets puts the total in tax-free money market funds at $474.45 billion, according to the Money Fund Report. The report monitors 550 funds. Average seven-day yields over the same period were 2.67%, down 24 basis points from the week before, and down 40 basis points from two weeks ago. The average maturity is 32 days, the same when compared to the week that ended Dec. 10. This week’s data is the first outflow in some time, but it was very small. Last week, tax-free money funds had inflows of $12 billion and the week before had inflows that totaled roughly $5 billion. “I believe the outflows were due to corporate tax payments, it is something that we see around the Dec. 15,” said Connie Bugbee managing editor of the report. “So corporations that have money in tax-free funds can pull money out to pay taxes. I wouldn’t be surprised if we get it back next week.”Taxable funds had outflows of $28.10 billion, putting total net assets at $2.612 trillion. The combined total is $3.086 trillion of assets under management.