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Money market fund assets

Flows/cash · weekly · ICI · 1 source · data as of 31 Jul 2026

A money market fund is where cash goes to sit. It holds very short dated debt, mostly Treasury bills and government paper, tries to keep its value steady, and pays you whatever short term rates happen to be. Nothing exciting. The reason it turns up in market commentary at all is the total: add every US money market fund together and you get a number in the trillions, and that number gets used to make an argument.

The argument is cash on the sidelines. All that money, waiting to pour into stocks. You'll see it every time the total hits a record. This page has the actual figures, the split between institutional and retail money, and the breakdown across government, prime and tax exempt funds, and then it explains why the sidelines framing mostly doesn't hold up. Understanding why is genuinely more useful than the headline total.

I wanted this page in the library because it's a good example of a real, well collected statistic being attached to a story it doesn't support. The data itself is fine. It's the interpretation that goes wrong, and the fix is mostly just knowing whose money is in there and what it's for. There is a legitimate way to read this series and it's covered further down the page. One source, published weekly, dated and linked below. It updates every week, so if you're reading this later, go get the current release rather than quoting the figure sitting here.