TEXT-Fitch affirms ratings on 46 money market funds

Link to Fitch Ratings' Report: 46 MMF RatingsAug 13 - Fitch Ratings has today affirmed its ratings on 44 money market
funds (MMFs), following a comprehensive semi-annual review of the sector.
Collectively, the 46 MMFs held close to $600 billion of assets under management
as of July 2012. A complete list of the 46 affirmed MMFs can be found by
following the link at the bottom of this release.

KEY RATING DRIVERS
The main drivers for the affirmations are:
-- The MMF portfolios' overall credit quality and diversification;
-- Low exposure to interest rate and spread risks;
-- Holdings of daily and weekly liquid assets consistent with shareholder
profile and concentration;
-- Maturity profiles meeting Fitch's rating criteria;
-- The capabilities and resources of the respective investment advisors.

PORTFOLIO CREDIT QUALITY/DIVERSIFICATION
Consistent with Fitch's MMF rating criteria, the reviewed 'AAAmmf'-rated funds
seek to maintain a high credit quality of their portfolios by investing
exclusively in short-term securities rated at least 'F1' by Fitch or equivalent.
MMFs rated 'AAmmf' and 'Ammf' may elect to invest a small percent of their
assets in securities rated 'F2' by Fitch or equivalent.

Generally, these MMFs limit their exposures to individual issuers at 5% of the
fund's assets. Minor and temporary deviations from this parameter can be
incurred by rated MMFs mainly due to seasonal cash outflows. Fitch expects such
deviations to be cured promptly with the incoming cash flows.

The funds also limit their exposure to individual repurchase agreement (repo)
counterparties to 25% of their assets provided such repos are fully
collateralized by U.S. Treasury and government securities. Other types of repos
entail lower counterparty exposure limits.

The reviewed prime MMFs' Portfolio Credit Factor (PCF), which is a risk-weighted
measure that considers the credit quality and maturity profile of the portfolio
securities, met Fitch's 'AAAmmf' rating criterion of 1.50 or less.

MATURITY PROFILES
The reviewed MMFs seek to limit interest rate and spread risk by maintaining
their weighted average maturity (WAM) and weighted average life (WAL) below 60
days and 120 days, respectively. These funds also limit the maturity date of any
single investment to 397 days with exception of floating rate securities issued
by the U.S. government or government agencies, which could have maturities as
long as 730 days. In line with the funds' in-house investment policies, maturity
limits of individual securities could be lower depending on the creditworthiness
of the issuer.

LIQUIDITY PROFILES
The funds seek to maintain sufficient levels of daily and weekly liquidity to
meet investors' redemption requests. Specifically, taxable MMFs rated 'AAAmmf'
invest at least 10% of total assets in securities offering daily liquidity and
at least 25% of total assets in securities providing weekly liquidity, in line
with Fitch rating criteria. Tax-exempt MMFs invest at least 25% of their assets
in securities offering weekly liquidity, consistent with Fitch's MMF rating
criteria. The funds fully met the respective liquidity targets.

FUNDS' OBJECTIVES
These MMFs seek to maximize current income to the extent consistent with the
preservation of capital and maintenance of liquidity.

INVESTMENT ADVISORS
Fitch views investment advisory capabilities, resource commitment, operational
controls, corporate governance, and compliance procedures of the respective
fund's investment advisors as consistent with the rating assigned to the funds.

RATING SENSITIVITY AND SURVEILLANCE
The ratings may be sensitive to material changes in the credit quality, market
risk, and/or liquidity profiles of the funds. A material adverse deviation from
Fitch's guidelines for any key rating driver could cause Fitch to downgrade the
ratings.

For additional information about Fitch's money market fund ratings guidelines,
please review the criteria referenced below. To maintain the fund ratings, Fitch
seeks weekly portfolio holdings information from the funds' administrator and
conducts surveillance checks against its ratings guidelines.

Surveillance data for the funds is available at www.fitchratings.com/FAM >
Surveillance.

A full list of MMFs and respective analysts can be accessed by following the
above link.

Additional information is available at 'www.fitchratings.com'. The ratings above
were solicited by, or on behalf of, the issuer, and therefore, Fitch has been
compensated for the provision of the ratings.

The sources of information used to assess this rating were the public domain and
the respective fund's investment advisor and/or administrator.

Applicable Criteria and Related Research:
--'Global Money Market Fund Rating Criteria', March 29, 2012;
--'U.S. Money Market Funds Sector Update: Second-Quarter 2012, July 12, 2012.

Applicable Criteria and Related Research:
Global Money Market Fund Rating Criteria