Alarm Bells Ring as Money-Market Funds Experience Historic Withdrawals
Total money-market fund assets plunged by $112BN in the last week as Tax-Day demands took the total assets below $6 Trillion for the first time sine January (to $5.97 Trillion)...
Source: Bloomberg
Corporate taxes collected from April 11 through April 17 totaled $100.7 billion, Treasury data show.
While Tax-Day's impact matters obviously, we note that this is the largest weekly drop in money-market fund assets since Lehman (Sept 2008) and the biggest two-week drop (-$143BN) on record...
Source: Bloomberg
Much of the decline in money-market fund assets was led by institutional outflows that totaled $96.6BN in the week ended April 17 - the largest drawdown since an extended tax-filing deadline in mid-October. Retail investors pulled about $15.5 billion out of money-market funds../.
Source: Bloomberg
In a breakdown for the week to April 17, government funds - which invest primarily in securities like Treasury bills, repurchase agreements and agency debt - saw assets fall to $4.8 trillion, a $99 billion decline.
Prime funds, which tend to invest in higher-risk assets such as commercial paper, meanwhile, saw assets fall to $1.01 trillion, a $12 billion decline.
Still, cash is expected to continue piling into money funds as long as the Federal Reserve keeps rates on hold - and this week has seen rate-cut expectations tumble further...
Source: Bloomberg
The Fed's balance sheet shrank to its smallest since February 2021...
Source: Bloomberg
As The Fed starts discussing tapering QT and usage of The Fed's bank bailout facility (now expired but these are 12 month term loans) fell by $4.1BN more to basically erase all the late-period arb-driven inflows, leaving a huge $126BN hole in bank balance sheets still being filled by this...
Source: Bloomberg
Finally, we note that bank reserve at The Fed slipped last week as it appears the reality for US equity market cap is starting to dawn...
Source: Bloomberg
While there may be no rate-cuts anytime soon... will The Fed taper QT in a big enough manner to avoid that recoupling?
This article originally appeared on Zero Hedge
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