Tax-Free Losses Hit $7.69B, Triple the Outflows of Last Week

Tax-free money market funds lost $7.69 billion - more than triple the outflows of the previous week - causing total assets to settle at $493.41 billion for the week ending Jan. 26, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com of Westborough, Mass.

By comparison, the funds lost $2.14 billion and settled at $501.1 billion in assets for the week ending Jan. 19, the report said.

The seven-day simple yield for the 511 tax-free money funds in the report this week remained at an all-time low of 0.29% for the second straight week. The previous record low of 0.31% was set during the week ending July 14, 2003, according to the report. Meanwhile, the average maturity declined by one day, to 27 days from 28 days.

Meanwhile, in the taxable market, assets of the 1,228 funds in the report grew by $21.08 billion to nearly $3.341 trillion, versus outflows of $25.82 billion to $3.319 trillion in assets for the week ending Jan. 20.

The seven-day average yield for taxable money funds set a new all-time low, dropping to 0.48% for the week ending Jan. 27. That was the first time ever that the yield fell below 0.50%, the previous record set during the week ending Aug. 26, 2003.

In total, the combined assets of the 1,739 tax-free and taxable money funds in the report grew by $13.39 billion to $3.83 trillion for the week ending Jan. 27, compared with outflows of $27.95 billion to $3.82 trillion in assets for the prior week.

 

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