Flight From Money-Market Funds

When the stock market has been as shaky as it's been over recent weeks, many investors seek a flight to safety, putting their assets in such things as money-market funds, which are guaranteed to do no worse than return your money to you. But money-market funds have been beaten down as well lately, and they're doing hardly anything more than that - the seven-day and 30-day yields are both at a barely visible 0.03 percent. The annual percentage yield is 0.22 percent.

Not surprisingly, assets in money-market funds have been dwindling alongside those paltry returns. Earlier this year, the amount of money in these funds fell below $3 trillion for the first time since October 2007. They lost nearly $10 billion in the last week alone, dropping the total amount invested in them to $2.84 trillion.

That's an awful lot of money coming to the sidelines. One potential bright side to the weak returns offered by money-market funds is that it might force investors to be a little more risky with their choices. And goodness knows, the stock market could use a little extra money right now.