If you’re curious, money market funds kicked off the new year with a big inflow.

In fact, the $143 billion haul globally (on EPFR’s numbers) counted as the largest since April of 2020, when the world was ending.

As for US MMFs, ICI’s data showed a $66 billion intake, the largest in a month and the third chunky inflow in a row.

Over the last three weeks alone, US money funds took in more than $165 billion.

Total MMF AUM in the US now stands at $6.92 trillion, according to ICI. As the figure above shows, the trajectory truly is remarkable.

With the Fed seen unlikely to cut aggressively in the first half of the year amid ongoing signs of labor market resilience, stubborn services sector price growth and concerns (exaggerated or not) that Donald Trump’s policies could (re)stoke inflation (MIGA!), rates on money funds will remain “higher for longer,” perhaps delaying any “rotation” from cash to riskier assets.

In a risk-off scenario, investors may well favor USD cash over Treasurys, particularly given the extent to which US duration’s seen as a falling knife until proven otherwise.

Cash outperformed Treasurys in 2024 for a fourth consecutive year. As noted in “Cash: A Renaissance Tale,” the performance disparity (in favor of cash) since 2022 is wide indeed.

For all of 2024, US MMFs took in $1.03 trillion, a rather incredible encore following 2023’s $1.15 trillion haul.

In his latest, BofA’s Michael Hartnett summed up 2024’s other flow winners, including IG credit funds (which took in a record $410 billion for the year), US stocks (which saw more than half a trillion of inflows, a record) and, of course, equity ETFs, which gathered an astounding $1.1 trillion of new assets last year, against a $430 billion outflow for actively-managed stock mutual funds. (Crocodile tears for active management. What’s the world coming to when a guy can’t charge an exorbitant expense ratio to underperform his benchmark?)