After two steady weeks of inflows, tax-exempt money market funds fell a modest $158.5 million to $327.33 billion in total net assets for the week ending Nov. 22, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.
The outflows came amid a barrage of short-term issuance anchored by a $10 billion offering of California revenue anticipation notes that broke the record for the largest-ever note sale in the municipal market.
The California Rans from the $2.25 billion Series A-1 mature in May 2011 and yielded 1.50% with a 3% coupon, while the $7.75 billion Series A-2 matures in June 2011 and yielded 1.75% with a 3% coupon.
During the three-day retail order period for the notes, California sold $6.06 billion, 60.6% of the total offering. Of the those maturing on May 25, 2011, $803.46 million were sold to retail, while $5.26 billion maturing on June 28 of next year went to retail.
The Rans are rated MIG-1 by Moody's Investors Service, SP-1 by Standard & Poor's, and F2 by Fitch Ratings.
By contrast, the previous week saw tax-exempt money funds gain $403.7 billion to $327.49 billion in total net assets — the second week of inflows in over a month.
The iMoneyNet money fund average, seven-day simple yield for the 481 tax-exempt funds reporting this week increased by one basis point to 0.04% from 0.03% last week, while the average maturity remained unchanged at 33 days.
The assets of the 1,135 taxable money funds reporting this week saw $11.68 billion of inflows and settled at $2.459 trillion in total net assets for the week ending Nov. 23. That is a marked improvement from the week before when losses of $9.18 billion left the funds with $2.447 trillion.
The average yield for the taxable funds remained at 0.03%, while the average maturity remained unchanged at 49 days.
After declining by nearly $9 billion last week, the total combined assets of the 1,616 money funds in the report regained most of those losses — and then some — by accumulating taking in $11.52 billion and finishing with $2.786 trillion.
Last week's $8.776 billion of losses left the funds with total net assets of $2.774 trillion.
