Foreign holdings of short-term U.S. Treasury securities fell in December. China reduced its holdings by $34.2 billion. China at the end of December still held $755.4billion in Treasury securities.
Japan also reduced its holdings of short-term U.S. Treasuries, cutting them by $11.5 billion for a total Treasury positon of $768.8 billion in December.
Note Drudge is featuring a headline:FOREIGN DEMAND FOR U.S. BONDS IN RECORD DROP...
This is simply wrong. The decline was limited to short-term Treasury securities, not bonds. In fact, net foreign purchases of long-term securities were up by $63.3 billion. Of this, net purchases by private foreign investors were $62.6 billion, and net purchases by foreign official institutions were $19.6 billion
The AP news article that this is from is wrong. See Zero Hedge.
ReplyDeleteActually, the error by AP is even broader than ZeroHedge realizes, which leads to ZeroHedge making a confusing correction. The AP story has short-term treasury securities and long-term treasury securtities jumbled. My data is from the official Treasury data and not from the AP story. It is correct.
ReplyDeleteThanks, though, given the AP confusion. I made my post a little clearer by making sure it is understtod that the $768.8 billion reflects TOTAL Treasury holdings.
ReplyDelete