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Advice on Money Market Mutual Funds

Unfortunately, TDA does not allow search on money market funds, and Fidelity shows only a few taxable MM funds with minimum contribution 100K and above. Any advice on NTF taxable MM funds and source where to perform research on MM funds.

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  • SPRXX at Fidelity has a 7 day SEC yield of 2.09% and a $0 minimum.
    https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/summary/31617H201

    You may be able to buy Vanguard MMFs at Vanguard and then transfer the shares in kind to Fidelity. At Fidelity, there is no commission to sell the shares. Not a good day-to-day strategy, but could work for holding cash.

    I think I did something like this many years ago, well before Vanguard forced people into brokerage accounts. So I don't know whether such a transfer from Vanguard would even be free now.

    You might also look at Firstrade accounts. They currently charge no transaction fee on any mutual fund they carry. You can't look up MMFs there by ticker, but if you go to their fund research page and select a fund family, you can find money market funds that are open at Firstrade. I found that VMMXX is open. Its current (Dec 7) SEC yield is 2.33% ($3K min at Vanguard; don't know about Firstrade's min for the fund.)
    https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/profile/VMMXX
    https://www.firstrade.com/content/en-us/researchtools/mutualfund

    Here's Barron's list of top yielding MMFs (I don't know why Vanguard doesn't show up). The funds listed tend to be high min share classes, but there are usually lower min shares, albeit with somewhat lower yields.
    http://barrons.wsj.net/public/page/9_0204-trmfy.html
  • Try- cranedata.com for top mmkt yields and info.You might be able to buy on your brokers platform( with a fee) an instit fund that pays well with a very low minimum. I am able to buy FNSXX with no minimum (yield 2.37%) in my Wellstrade account. For me it is NTF. VMMXX might also be available for you or some other high yielding fund on your platform.
  • For clarity: you're referring to institutional (high min) share class of retail MMFs, not to institutional MMFs. Institutional MMFs are required to float their NAV. For example, FDPXX.

    In theory, institutional MMFs are open to retail investors, but they generally have high minimums, similar to institutional share classes of retail funds.
    Institutional prime and institutional municipal money market mutual funds are funds that do not qualify as retail funds—i.e., they may be held by institutional investors. These funds are subject to potential liquidity fees and redemption gates, and will price and transact at a floating NAV (meaning that the NAV will be priced to 4 decimal places, e.g. $1.0000, and will experience fluctuations from time to time).
    https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/investment-products/mutual-funds/what-are-money-market-funds
  • All Institutional designated funds can have potential floating NAV's and the other issues as noted by MSF above. From my research they are NOT required to do so though. Fidelity in their literature states though this can happen ,they do not expect this to occur with FNSXX, as the company wishes to do everything possible to maintain the $1.00 NAV. So in the past 12 mo the NAV has been $1.00. without any changes. FDPXX does float and has done so in the past 12 months As always read the prospectus before you invest!
  • Thank you, guys. I have now information to review.
  • msf
    edited December 2018
    "These reforms require prime institutional money market funds to “float their NAV” (no longer maintain a stable price) and provide non-government money market fund boards with new tools — liquidity fees and redemption gates — to address runs. These changes took effect on October 14, 2016."
    https://www.sec.gov/spotlight/money-market.shtml

    From the FNSXX prospectus:
    "The fund is a retail money market fund. Shares of the fund are available only to accounts beneficially owned by natural persons."

    It is not offered for sale to institutions, except to the extent that they are buying shares for (the benefit of) their customers (e.g. brokers may buy shares to be held in street name for their clients).

    This is why I tried to clarify the distinction between institutional MMFs (a legal term of art) and institutional class shares (a fuzzy term generally meaning a share class of a retail fund with a high minimum, whatever high may mean).

    Here's a good page by Vanguard with both chart and text explaining the differences between government, retail, and institutional MMFs:
    https://institutional.vanguard.com/VGApp/iip/site/institutional/investments/MoneyMarketReform

    (Note that the Vanguard page is wrong in saying that government MMFs cannot use gates. None will, but they are allowed to opt in, with adequate notice to investors. See https://www.sec.gov/oiea/investor-alerts-bulletins/investor-alerts-mmf-investoralerthtm.html )
  • rom the FNSXX prospectus:

    “Shares of the fund are available only to accounts beneficially owned by natural persons."

    As opposed to “unnatural persons”?:)
  • "Corporations are people, my friend."
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romney-says-corporations-are-people/2011/08/11/gIQABwZ38I_story.html

    They are not natural persons but ones conceived by humans.
    Hmm, maybe I should rethink my choice of verbs:-)
  • I've known a fair number of unnatural persons in my time. As far as I know, they were all conceived by humans (maybe that needs some research). But then, this is SF. :)
  • hank said:

    rom the FNSXX prospectus:

    “Shares of the fund are available only to accounts beneficially owned by natural persons."

    As opposed to “unnatural persons”?:)

    as opposed to 'legal person', which is (can be) an org
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