Foreign central bank holdings of Treasury Debt nudged past $2 trillion for the first time ever, but those buyers of US obligations mostly sat on their hands last week. This week’s Reuters report [1] chalked up just a $3.473 billion rise in total holdings, with both numbers improving slightly. The report was, as usual, based on the weekly update from the NY Fed’s H.4.1 table site.[2] Here is Doom’s updated CSV version of the agencies and treasuries foreign central bank holdings data set.[3]

Treasuries rose $4.289 billion, not much better than last week. With massive supply of T-bills coming down the pipe, this doesn’t provide much support.

The drift down in agencies has slowed to a trickle, down just $0.816 billion.  That’s 7 straight weeks of net selling, but in all that time the total has slipped less than $20 billion.

Twist’s ratios graphs slip down just a bit.

Setser’s 52-week change graph didn’t do anything dramatic this week.

________________________

Notes and References

[1]: "Foreign cenbanks’ US Trsy holdings up in week – Fed", by Burton Frierson, Reuters, July 30, 2009.

[2]: "H.4.1 Factors Affecting Reserve Balances", Federal Reserve Statistical Release (weekly), Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

[3]: The updated data set as a Comma Separated Value (CSV) file is here.

Related Posts

1. Foreign Cenbank Holdings of US Obligations Weekly Update — to 15 July 2009 (July 17, 2009)
   Tagged Credit Contraction, Market Trends in Federal Reserve, Finance
   
   
2. Foreign Cenbank Holdings of US Obligations Weekly Update — to 22 July 2009 (July 24, 2009)
   in Federal Reserve
   
   
3. Foreign Cenbank Holdings of US Obligations Weekly Update — to 08 July 2009 (July 10, 2009)
   Tagged Charts and Graphs in Federal Reserve
   
   
4. Foreign Cenbank Holdings of US Obligations Weekly Update — to 17 June 2009 (June 19, 2009)
   in Federal Reserve
   
   
5. Foreign Cenbank Holdings of US Obligations Weekly Update — to 20 May 2009 (May 22, 2009)
   Tagged Charts and Graphs, Market Trends in Federal Reserve