Money Market Rates Stir;
High-Yield Eases to 3.043%

Money market rates finally moved over the two weeks since our July 6 report, after two nearly motionless readings. Three tiers fell and two rose: high-yield money market eased 0.021 points to 3.043%, the jumbo tier ended its dead-flat streak with the board’s largest decline, and standard slipped, while business and credit union money market firmed. None of it changes the headline fact of this market: at 3.043%, the high-yield tier still pays more than a full point above high-yield savings and out-yields even the one-year CD, all while staying fully liquid.

📊 Full 5-tier money market data: 1,886 institutions tracked across all 50 states.

NATIONAL: National MMA APYs broke their standstill over the two weeks ending July 20, 2026, with three of the five tracked tiers lower and two higher. High-yield money market accounts eased 0.021 points to 3.043%, their first meaningful move in a month, while jumbo money market fell 0.087 points to 1.708%, the largest change on the board, and standard slipped 0.024 points to 0.709%. Going the other way, business money market rose 0.040 points to 1.067% and credit union money market firmed 0.018 points to 1.298%.

High-yield money market gave back a little and kept everything that matters. The 0.021-point easing to 3.043% trims the tier off its early-July perch, but the comparisons that define it barely moved: it out-pays high-yield savings, at 1.996% as of this report, by 1.047 points, and it still beats the one-year CD, at 2.847%, by 0.196 points without locking the money up. A liquid account out-yielding a locked one-year term has now held all summer, and no other tier on the deposit board comes close to that combination.

The rest of the board finally showed a pulse. Jumbo money market’s 0.087-point drop to 1.708% ended the dead-flat streak it carried through early July, though it keeps second place comfortably. Standard money market, the broad-market tier and the lowest of the five, slipped 0.024 points to 0.709%. The two gainers came from the middle: business money market’s 0.040-point rise was the largest gain of the report, and credit union money market added 0.018 points to 1.298%, holding third. Two-week windows produce bigger moves than single weeks, and the tracked universe expanded again over this stretch, so the jumbo drop in particular reads as repricing plus composition rather than one dramatic event. The ranking of the five tiers did not change.

The gap remains the point. With high-yield and standard both easing, the spread between them ticked to 2.334 points, a hair wider than in early July, and it remains the widest rate-shopping gap on the entire deposit board: a saver in a standard money market account earns less than a quarter of what the high-yield tier pays. These are national averages, drawn from rates collected directly off institution websites, so what any one saver earns depends on the bank and the balance. Someone comparing Colorado money market rates, for instance, can line up the best in-state and online options against this national picture.

Movement without meaning is still the honest summary here. The five tiers traded a few hundredths in both directions over two weeks, the first genuine motion since June, but the structure that makes this market interesting is exactly where it was: one tier above 3%, a long drop to the specialty tiers in the middle, and a broad standard tier at the bottom paying roughly a fifth of the leader. The Federal Reserve held its benchmark at 3.50% to 3.75% on June 17 for a fourth straight meeting, the first under new Chair Kevin Warsh, and its hawkish projections keep the top of this market anchored near where a mid-3% funds rate puts it. The next FOMC meeting comes at the end of this month; a hold keeps this board in its range, and a hike, which the Fed’s own projections now lean toward, would lift the variable high-yield tier further.

For savers deciding where liquid cash should sit, the comparison worth running is a money market account or a savings account, and right now the numbers make it lopsided: the high-yield money market tier at 3.043% pays more than a full point above high-yield savings at 1.996%, the widest that gap has been this summer, in exchange for the balance minimums and tiering that money market accounts often attach. It also remains the only liquid product on the deposit board that out-yields the one-year CD, so a saver unwilling to lock a term is not giving up yield to stay flexible; they are gaining it. If the Fed’s next move is up, the variable tier captures it automatically. Tier-by-tier detail lives on the money market rate trends page.