in Fund History
By Matthew P. Fink
“There is no inevitability in history except as men make it.”
— Felix Frankfurter
Harry Brown, Bruce Bent,
James Benham, John F.
Donahue and David Silver
Money Market Funds
The late 1960s ushered in high inflation.
Institutions and wealthy individuals could
earn market rates of return by purchasing
Treasury bills in amounts of $10,000 or
higher and bank certificates of deposit in
excess of $100,000. Most Americans were
limited to earning low returns on bank
and savings and loan passbook accounts,
whose rates were limited by federal law.
In 1972 in New York, two former
employees of TIAA-CREF, Harry Brown
and Bruce Bent, created The Reserve Fund,
which invested in Treasury bills, large CDs
and other short-term instruments and paid
the interest less expenses to shareholders.
A few weeks later across the country in San
Jose, Ca Y