Friday, April 17, 2026

Holy Mackerel! Stop The Presses! Huge! My Favorite Chart -- New Record Set -- April 17, 2026

Locator: 50556MMFS.

Tag: MMFs MMF record Whoo-hoo!

By the way, this is the free space on your Bingo Card. This happens like clockwork every April 15th. 

I haven't seen a report like this -- since a year ago -- let's see what Crane Data has to say: 

AI prompt:

Every week ICI releases the Money Market Funds report. Today, April 17, 2026, the figure declined by $175 billion. Is that a record?

Yes, that is a record. The previous record was set a year ago, with a decline of $125 billion. Gee, I wonder what this means?

Reply:


Wow, wow, wow -- look at the reason -- "the massive decline is attributed to significant outflows following the April 15 tax day deadline. This speaks volumes and I have much to say about that but it will have to wait. 

To put that $175 billion in perspective -- that's all cash, not gold -- the following countries have this amount of cash on hand in their foreign exchange reserves (not total amount held by central banks), feel free to fact check -- it all depends how you measure and when you measure:
  • France: $30 billion, mostly US cash
  • Britain: $32 billion
  • Germany: $38 billion
  • Saudi Arabia: $475 billion, mostly US cash
  • Switzerland: $924 billion (no typo)
    • most of that cash, of course, comes from the making of cuckoo clocks 

Oh, here's the ICI: 

Link here.

Look at that decline! Wow, I wonder where the money is going.

Oh, that's right. The S&P 500 hit an all-time record this past week. 

And folks tell me the MMF doesn't mean a thing. Okay.

The decline reported today is notable -- it does not set a record on the flip side -- compared to records for inflows. The largest inflows in history occurred around March, 2020, with other large spikes in 2025 / 2026 reaching around $100 - $200 billion on rare occasions. 

I consider both of those inflows irrelevant and immaterial anomalies (to paraphrase Perry Mason) due to Covid and the Iran War, respectively.

Interestingly, those jumps / inflows have never receded. MMFs are still at record highs. 

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