The September issue of our flagship Money Fund Intelligence newsletter, which will be sent to subscribers Tuesday morning, features the articles: "WSJ: Investors Cling to Cash; MMFs Not Trailing Inflation," which reviews recent coverage of investors holding cash in money market funds; "European Money Fund Assets Record $1.7 Tril.; Holdings," which reviews the latest MFI International asset and portfolio holdings data; and "Digital Deals Proliferate: FHI/Conduit, Franklin/HashKey, MS," which covers new tokenized fund and digital cash deals. We also sent out our MFI XLS spreadsheet Tuesday a.m., and we've updated our Money Fund Wisdom database with 8/31/26 data. Our September Money Fund Portfolio Holdings are scheduled to ship on Thursday, Sept. 10, and our September Bond Fund Intelligence is scheduled to go out on Tuesday, Sept. 15. (Note: We still have a few seats left for our upcoming European Money Fund Symposium, which will take place in just over 2 weeks -- Sept. 24-25 in Paris, France!)
MFI's "WSJ Says Investors Clinging to Cash" story says, "The Wall Street Journal posted an article titled, 'Wealth Management Has a $3 Trillion Problem: Investors Are Keeping Too Much Cash.' Subtitled, 'Advisers are pitching bonds and other investments, but many prefer to keep cash in money-market funds,' it tells us, ‘Since Don Ross retired as an airline pilot a decade ago, all the financial planners he has spoken with have wanted him to invest his cash. He isn't sold. He is keeping 85% of his portfolio in stocks and the rest in a money-market fund yielding 3.62%. Ross looked at historical bear markets and determined they typically don't last longer than three years. He keeps enough of his portfolio in cash to comfortably get himself through that period, and he sells stocks when he needs to replenish his cash pile.'"
It continues, "The piece says, 'He is among the investors giving headaches to the money managers who want them to part ways with their cash. Individual investors are sitting on a mountain of it. There is over $3 trillion in retail money-market funds, hovering around a record high, according to the Investment Company Institute. (And that doesn't include the trillions of institutional dollars sitting in money-market funds.)'"
We write in our "European MF" article, "Crane Data’s latest Money Fund Intelligence International shows that assets in European or 'offshore' money market mutual funds increased over the month of August to $1.689 trillion. They broke above $1.7 trillion on the first day of September, rising to a record $1.707 trillion. Assets for USD and EUR MMFs rose but GBP MMFs fell over the past month. Yields were up across all three major currencies. Like U.S. money fund assets, European MMFs have repeatedly hit record highs in 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026."
The story continues, "These U.S.-style money funds, domiciled in Ireland or Luxembourg and denominated in US Dollars, Pound Sterling and Euros, increased by $20.1 billion over the month of August. The totals are up $104.8 billion, or 6.6%, year-to-date for 2026. They were up $151.9 billion (10.6%) for 2025, up $235.3 billion (19.7%) for 2024 and up $166.9 billion (16.2%) for the year 2023. (Note that currency moves in the U.S. Dollar cause Euro and Sterling totals to shift when they’re translated back into totals in USD. See our latest MFI International for more on the 'offshore' money fund marketplace. These funds are only available to qualified, non-U.S. investors and are almost entirely institutional.)"
Our "Digital Deals" story says, "In addition to the flurry of tokenized money fund and stablecoin reserve money fund launches we've seen, a number of 'digital deals' have also been announced. The latest press release is, 'Federated Hermes enters strategic alliance with Conduit Digital Holdings on tokenized money market fund in Asia Pacific,' which tells us, 'Federated Hermes, Inc. (FHI) ... announced a strategic alliance with Singapore-based Conduit Digital Holdings Pte Ltd, part of the Conduit Group, to support the launch of a regulated tokenized distribution structure in APAC. Under this arrangement, the Conduit-managed investment fund will invest in the Federated Hermes Short-Term U.S. Prime Fund. Shares of the Conduit fund, which provide exposure to the underlying Federated Hermes fund, will then be tokenized and offered to institutional and wholesale investors, in APAC.'"
It continues, "Another release, 'HashKey Exchange and Franklin Templeton to Bring On-Chain U.S. Government Liquidity Fund to Asia,' tells us, ‘HashKey Holdings Limited ... announced that its licensed trading platform, HashKey Exchange ... announced a collaboration with established global asset manager Franklin Templeton to distribute its flagship tokenized money market fund, Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Liquidity Fund (BENJI), to digital asset investors in Asia.'"
MFI also includes the News brief, "MMF Assets Rebound to Record Levels in August." It says, "Our MFI XLS shows MMF assets jumping $78.5 billion in August to a record $8.376 trillion. Meanwhile, ICI's separate and smaller weekly 'Money Market Fund Assets" series shows MMFs rebounding $44.8 billion to a record $7.979 trillion in the latest week (ended 9/2)."
Another News brief, "Cunningham on Flows," says, "A Commentary piece was posted on Reuters which asks, 'What's really driving flows into the $13.5 trillion money market pool?' Written by Federated Hermes' Deborah Cunningham, it tells us, 'Money market fund assets hit a record $13.5 trillion in the first quarter. [Crane Data Note: This is a worldwide total and not just U.S. MMFs.] This upward trend began over four years ago, at a point in the rate cycle that historically heralded outflows from the asset class. So, what is driving these continued inflows?'"
A third News brief, "T. Rowe on Stable Value vs. MMFs," says, "T. Rowe Price published, 'Resetting expectations: Why stable value makes sense in today's dynamic markets,' which tells us, 'The debate between stable value portfolios and money market funds has reignited, as defined contribution (DC) consultants expect increased plan sponsor interest in reviewing/revisiting their plans' capital preservation investment options. This is largely driven by today's interest rate environment, in which money market fund yields have outpaced stable value crediting rates over the past three years -- a dynamic rarely seen over the past 3 decades.'"
A sidebar, "Latest S&P, Fitch Updates," says, "S&P Global Ratings published 'U.S. Domestic 'AAAm' Money Market Fund Trends (Second-Quarter 2026)' recently, which tells us, 'Rated government and prime MMF assets grew to $4.8 trillion by the end of the second quarter. Rated government MMF assets increased 4.3% and rated prime MMF assets increased 0.8% during the first half of the year. Flows were in line with seasonal trends, where assets dipped during tax season before rebounding.'"
Our September MFI XLS, with August 31 data, shows total assets jumping $78.5 billion to $8.376 trillion, after falling $65.6 billion in July and increasing $49.5 billion in June. They increased $193.2 billion in May, decreased $102.1 billion in April and $56.6 billion in March, but increased $94.0 billion in February. Assets rose $38.5 billion in January, $123.5 billion in December, $129.3 billion in November, $141.5 billion in October, and $100.4 billion last September.
Our broad Crane Money Fund Average 7-Day Yield was up 1 bp at 3.40%, and our Crane 100 Money Fund Index (the 100 largest taxable funds) was up 1 bp at 3.51% in August. On a Gross Yield Basis (7-Day) (before expenses are taken out), the Crane MFA and the Crane 100 averaged 3.76% and 3.77%. Charged Expenses averaged 0.36% and 0.26% for the Crane MFA and the Crane 100. (We'll revise expenses once we upload the SEC's Form N-MFP data for 8/31/26 on Wednesday, 9/9.) The average WAM (weighted average maturity) for the Crane MFA was 38 days (unchanged) and the Crane 100 WAM was down 1 day from the previous month at 39 days. (See our Crane Index or craneindexes.xlsx history file for more on our averages.)
