China Hearts US Treasuries

Maybe they don't heart Treasuries, but with a soaring trade deficit they don't have much of a choice if they want to keep the Yuan cheap. The FT details the broader demand for Treasuries:

Foreign investors scooped a near record amount of US debt in August and sharply increased their holdings of Treasury bonds, according to the latest Treasury International Capital report.

August was marked by fears that the US economy faced a possible double dip recession and yields on Treasury bonds fell sharply as bond investors priced in a move by the Federal Reserve to start another round of quantitative easing. The Fed announced in August that it would start reinvesting principal payments from its agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities in longer-term Treasury securities.

And China is by far the biggest foreign buyer. Over the last 12 months, China has purchased more than 40% of the marginal increase in foreign Treasury holdings assuming that purchases of the United Kingdom are in fact simply Chinese purchases (see here for more on why the bulk of the UK jump is in fact Chinese purchases).



Source: Treasury