In the pre-holiday week — and following the first significant inflow activity since early October — investors withdrew $3.48 billion in assets from tax-exempt money market funds, leaving them at $405.25 billion for the week ending Dec. 14, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.
The outflows came as many investors are preparing for the upcoming holidays, and on the heels of $2.59 billion of inflows for the week ending Dec. 7. Those inflows were the first since the week ending Oct. 5, when investors added a moderate $643.2 million to tax-exempt money funds. The funds ended last week with $408.73 billion in total assets.
Meanwhile, the average seven-day simple yield for the 500 tax-exempt money market funds remained at an all-time low of 0.03% for the second week in a row, while the average maturity increased to 31 days from 30 days last week.
Also this week, The Bond Buyer's one-year note index fell three basis points to 0.49%, an all-time low. It was the third consecutive record lows for the index, which began on July 12, 1989.
In the taxable market, the 1,172 funds saw outflows of $32.72 billion for the week ending Dec. 15, closing with $2.846 trillion in total assets, compared with inflows of $10.41 billion for the week ending Dec. 8, when the funds finished at $2.879 trillion. This week, the average seven-day yield for all taxable funds remained at a record low of 0.03% for the fourth week straight.
The assets of the combined 1,672 money funds in the report suffered outflows of $36.20 billion for the week ending Dec. 15, causing the funds to settle at $3.252 trillion, according to iMoneyNet. For the week ending Dec. 8, week, by comparison, the combined assets rose by $12.99 billion and settled at $3.288 trillion.
