Friday, September 4, 2009

Money market funds still relatively stable


Looking at money market fund flows will tell us something about what consumers and business are doing with their cash. The answer seem to be - not much. The money short-term funds is stil higher than last Fall. We peaked at the end of the year. There has been some decline bu tthere is not a lot of risk taking as evidenced by these numbers. This means there is a lot of cash to push stocks higher if investors have a change in risk taking..

Dollars in money market funds have declined by over $300 billion with most of that coming from government funds. The non-government funds have stayed stable. This would make sense that risk taking would first occur with funds from the least risky assets which have the lowest yield. However this is a just a transfer inot other short-term assets. A real rally would see money moving into longer term assets and out of cash.

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