SEC Offers More Money Market Fund Disclosure

WASHINGTON — The Securities and Exchange Commission announced Monday that investors can for the first time access detailed information that money market funds file with the SEC under changes to Rule 2a-7 that it implemented last year.

The additional disclosures include information about a fund’s investments and the market-based price of its portfolio known as its “shadow” net-asset value, or mark-to-market valuation, rather than the stable $1.00 NAV at which fund shares are bought and sold.

Under rules implemented early last year, the shadow NAV must be reported on a monthly basis with a 60-day lag.

“While the commission uses this information in its real-time oversight of money market funds, we also believe that public disclosure can provide investors and market analysts with useful insight for their evaluation of these funds,” SEC chairman Mary Schapiro said in a release issued Monday.

Funds began filing the information on the SEC’s new Form N-MFP in December. The rule also requires money market funds to post more current but less detailed portfolio information on their own websites within five business days after the end of the month.

The SEC has said additional money market fund rule changes are under consideration. In October, the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets released a report outlining a number of options for additional fund reforms that addressed the vulnerabilities that contributed to the financial crisis in 2008. That crisis led to an unprecedented $50 billion federal liquidity backstop for the funds.

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