I was looking for something else on the Division of Investment Management’s (Division) website the other day and ran across a study of Prime MMFs’ Asset Composition and Asset Sales (the Study) released by its Analytics Office in June. Nothing indicates why the Study was prepared, but I hope it reflects an effort by the Division to better understand how prime institutional money market funds operate and the potential consequences of the proposal to require these funds to employ “swing pricing” whenever they have net redemptions. The Study supports my conclusion that this proposal would dilute redeeming shareholders rather than preventing dilution to remaining shareholders.

Comments on the SEC’s proposed money market fund reforms were due April 11, so it is time to wrap up my series on the swing pricing proposal included in the reform package. In this final post, I want to consider some baffling references to “liquidity externalities that money market fund liquidity management practices may impose on market participants transacting in the same asset classes.” I cannot find an interpretation of these references that comport with my understanding of “externalities.”

This continues my series of posts on the SEC’s proposal to require money market funds with floating net asset values (“institutional money funds”) to implement swing pricing during any pricing period in which the fund has net redemptions. In this post, I consider the effects of swinging a price too frequently.

This continues my series of posts on the SEC’s proposal to require money market funds with floating net asset values (“institutional money funds”) to implement swing pricing during any pricing period in which the fund has net redemptions. Having surveyed how institutional money funds are supposed to determine swing prices under the proposal, I am turning to when swing pricing would be required. First, I want to consider a unique feature of institutional money funds, namely that many funds calculate a floating net asset value per share (“NAV”) more than once a day. The proposed amendments would define the time from the calculation of one NAV to the next as a “pricing period.” Pricing periods pose two conflicting problems for swing pricing.

This continues my series of posts on the SEC’s proposal to require money market funds with floating net asset values (“institutional money funds”) to implement swing pricing during any pricing period in which the fund has net redemptions. Having address the estimated costs that institutional money funds must always include in their swing price, this post considers the “market impact factor” to be included when net redemptions exceed the market impact threshold. I suspect the SEC underestimated the difficulty of estimating market impact factors.

This is another in my series of posts on the SEC’s proposal to require that money market funds with floating net asset values (“institutional money funds”) implement swing pricing during any pricing period in which the fund has net redemptions. This post continues the analysis of the estimated costs that an institutional money fund “must include, for each security in the fund’s portfolio” when determining any swing price. These costs are:

  • Spread costs,
  • Brokerage commissions,
  • Custody fees, and
  • Any other charges, fees, and taxes associated with portfolio security sales.

I cannot tell what this last bullet might include, so I will discuss two expenses that should not be included.

This is another in my series of posts on the SEC’s proposal to require money market funds with floating net asset values (“institutional money funds”) to implement swing pricing during any pricing period in which the fund has net redemptions. This post continues the analysis of the estimated costs that an institutional money fund “must include, for each security in the fund’s portfolio” when determining any swing price. These costs are:

  • Spread costs,
  • Brokerage commissions,
  • Custody fees, and
  • Any other charges, fees, and taxes associated with portfolio security sales.

This post considers custody fees.

This post begins a detailed consideration of the SEC’s proposal to require money market funds with floating net asset values (“institutional money funds”) to implement swing pricing during any pricing period in which the fund has net redemptions. I begin with the estimated costs that an institutional money fund “must include for each security in the fund’s portfolio” when determining any swing price, namely:

  • spread costs,
  • brokerage commissions,
  • custody fees, and
  • any other charges, fees, and taxes associated with portfolio security sales.

This post considers spread costs and brokerage commissions.

This is the fifth in my series of posts analyzing the SEC’s recent proposal to require money market funds with floating share prices (“institutional money funds”) to implement “swing pricing” for pricing periods in which the fund has net redemptions. This post completes the illustration from my last two posts and examines the impact of swing pricing on the fund and its shareholders.

This is the fourth in my series of posts analyzing the SEC’s recent proposal to require money market funds with floating share prices (“institutional money funds”) to implement “swing pricing” for pricing periods in which the fund has net redemptions. This post continues the example from the previous post to illustrate how the proposal would address net redemptions exceeding the market impact threshold.