Money-Market Fund Assets Crash 'Most Since Lehman' As Bank Deposits Rose Last Week

Money-market funds saw the largest weekly outflow since Lehman (Q3 2008), plunging $99BN...

money market fund assets crash most since lehman as bank deposits rose last week

Source: Bloomberg

The outflows were all from institutional funds (retail funds saw another inflow)...

money market fund assets crash most since lehman as bank deposits rose last week

Source: Bloomberg

Presumably this was driven by tax-extension deadline payments - or else something serious is happening.

Total bank deposits - on a seasonally-adjusted basis - dropped for the second week in a row (-$$8.7BN)...

money market fund assets crash most since lehman as bank deposits rose last week

Source: Bloomberg

Non-seasonally-adjusted, total deposits saw inflows for the 3rd week in a row (+$20.6BN)...

money market fund assets crash most since lehman as bank deposits rose last week

Source: Bloomberg

Is this the start of a major reversal... or just the one-off tax flows?

money market fund assets crash most since lehman as bank deposits rose last week

Source: Bloomberg

Domestically, excluding foreign banks, there were deposit inflows on both an SA and NSA basis...

money market fund assets crash most since lehman as bank deposits rose last week

Source: Bloomberg

Which has narrowed the delta between SA and NSA deposit outflows since SVB to just $38BN (the outflows are still over $200BN total)...

money market fund assets crash most since lehman as bank deposits rose last week

Source: Bloomberg

On the other side of the ledger, bans increased their lending volumes modestly last week - after 2 weeks of shrinkage - op around $9BN...

money market fund assets crash most since lehman as bank deposits rose last week

Source: Bloomberg

The Fed's balance sheet shrank by around $19BN last week, but usage of its emergency funding facility for banks remained at record highs around $109BN...

money market fund assets crash most since lehman as bank deposits rose last week

Source: Bloomberg

Bank reserves at The Fed and US equity market appear to be converging back together...

money market fund assets crash most since lehman as bank deposits rose last week

Source: Bloomberg

The key warning sign continues to trend lower (Small Banks' reserve constraint), supported above the critical level by The Fed's emergency funds (for now).

money market fund assets crash most since lehman as bank deposits rose last week

Source: Bloomberg

Notably above, Large bank cash is surging (as those money-market fund outflows move?) - is it time to sacrifice another small bank for the greater good?

money market fund assets crash most since lehman as bank deposits rose last week

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, if you're wondering why regional banks were clubbed like a baby seal this week... wonder no more...

money market fund assets crash most since lehman as bank deposits rose last week

Source: Bloomberg

They have a $109BN (at least) hole in their balance sheets that needs to be filled by March-ish...

money market fund assets crash most since lehman as bank deposits rose last week

...(and with rates going higher, good luck!)

Tl;dr:...

Authored by Tyler Durden via ZeroHedge October 20th 2023