Fitch Launches Money Market Fund Analytical Tool

Fitch Ratings has released a new money market fund (MMF) analytical tool, Funds Surveillance Metrics Analytics Research Tool (Funds SMART). This web-based tool is available free of charge on Fitch’s website and is intended to provide investors in Fitch-rated MMFs with updated fund-level summaries and analytics for those credit, market and liquidity risk metrics most relevant to a MMF’s safety and soundness.

Some of the analytical metrics captured by Funds SMART include:

• Portfolio composition by asset type and credit quality and maturity.
• Portfolio liquidity as measured by maturity distribution and weighted average maturity.
• Time series data with respect to portfolio assets under management.
• Time series data with respect to portfolio yield.

Following the 2008 financial crisis, MMF investors increasingly are looking for enhanced transparency with respect to key risk factors. Funds SMART provides a one-stop platform for MMF investors, including the means to track a fund’s adherence to the key metrics applied by Fitch when rating MMFs.