Assets of the nation's retail mutual funds rose during the past week, while yields on taxable money funds remained little changed over the past seven days.
Yields on tax-free money funds eased slightly but money-market interest rates dipped to their lowest level on record. Home-mortgage rates and four-year auto loans also eased.The Washington-based Investment Company institute said assets of the nation's 645 retail money-market mutual funds rose $3.19 billion to $392.39 billion for the week ended Aug. 18.
ICI said assets of the 404 taxable money-market funds in the retail category grew $2.96 billion to $309.23 billion; the 241 tax-exempt funds assets increased $230.0 million to $83.16 billion.
Assets of the 272 institutional money-market funds fell $2.86 billion to $189.10 billion for the same period, ICI said.
Among institutional funds, the 220 taxable money-market fund assets fell $2.04 billion to $168.06 billion; assets of the 52 tax-exempt funds rose $181.0 million to $21.03 billion.
ICI said total money-market mutual-fund assets stood at $581.15 billion for the week ended Aug. 18.
Assets of money-market mutual funds for the week ended Aug. 11 were revised to $580.15 billion. The revisions were due to reporting errors and a change in the number of funds reporting, ICI noted.
Meanwhile, The Money Fund Report of Ashland, Mass., said yields on taxable money-market mutual funds remained unchanged, while yields on tax-free money funds eased slightly.
Money Fund Report said the average 7-day compound taxable yield remained at 2.68 percent for the fourth consecutive week.
The average maturity of investments held by funds lengthened by 1 day to 62 days - a sign that fund managers do not expect yields to rise much in coming weeks.
The funds invest in commercial paper (short-term corporate IOUs), short-term bank certificates of deposit and Treasury bills.
The newsletter said the average seven-day compounded yield on tax-free funds, which purchase short-term municipal securities, fell to 2.00 percent from 2.07 percent last week.
The latest yield is equivalent to 3.13 percent on a taxable investment for someone in the 36-percent tax bracket, and to 3.31 percent for those paying 39.6 percent in taxes.
Money Fund said assets of 607 taxable funds slipped to $472.68 billion from $473.21 billion a week earlier. Institutional investors took out $2 billion, while individual investors added $1.46 billion.
Assets of the 326 tax-exempt money funds declined to $102.08 billion from $102.89 billion last week, Money Fund said. Average maturity of their investments, primarily short-term municipal securities, lengthened by 2 days to 67 days.
The average 30-day compound yield remained at 2.68 percent, the weekly newsletter said. Compound yields assume reinvestment of dividends.
The average seven-day simple yields of taxable funds remained at 2.64 percent while 30-day simple yields inched up to 2.65 percent from 2.64 percent.
Meanwhile, the Bank Rate Monitor, a North Palm Beach, Fla., publication that tracks interest rates and pricing trends in the banking industry, said average rates on money-market deposit accounts dipped to 2.43 percent - their lowest level since the industry began offering such accounts in December 1982.
Bankers were offering 2.44 percent on the accounts last week.
The publication said interest bearing checking accounts eased to 1.75 percent from 1.76 percent and 6-month certificates of deposit slipped to 2.80 percent from 2.81 percent.
The publication said average rates on 1-year CDs remained at 3.09 percent, 2 1/2-year CDs dipped to 3.69 percent from 3.70 percent and 5-year CDs eased to 4.84 percent from 4.86 percent.
BRM noted that the annual percentage yield on CDs would be slightly higher.
The average rate for the popular 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage dipped to 6.98 percent from 7.03 eprcent; 15-year mortgages eased to 6.49 percent from 6.52 percent and 1-year ARMs slide to 4.25 percent from 4.27 percent, BRM said.