U.S. money funds seen cutting European exposure

Some U.S. money market mutual funds are being forced to cut their exposure to euro zone banks due to growing public anxiety about a possible Greek debt default... JPMorgan's estimates show money funds exposure to European banks dropped from around $490 billion at the end of the first quarter of 2010 to roughly $360 billion at the end of May 2011...

But:

Fitch estimated on Tuesday that during the three months that ended May 31 the 10 largest U.S. money funds had half of their $755 billion in assets in places that were potentially exposed to European banks.

Then there's this from Fitch:

The firm said over the last three months, money-market funds' exposure to European banks has remained stable at about 50% of total assets.

So there you have it; US banks are now "only" potentially exposed to European default by either 13%, 28% or 50%. How comforting!

Should we mention that even 1% would "break the buck" nowadays? Thanks to Ben Bernanke for creating this "yield chasing" that has created a "Lehman 2.0" situation for our financial system.