Wednesday, November 17, 2010

China Raises US Debt holdings as Others Offload

While other countries are dropping US debt holdings like a hot potato, China and Japan are buying them up. Beijing increased its US holdings to almost $884 billion. Is it time to start learning Mandarin yet?

From Yahoo News:

The United States' top creditor China increased its stockpile of American debt in September, official figures showed on Tuesday, even as other nations slashed their holdings.

Both China and Japan bucked the trend of foreign investors cutting their exposure of US assets.

Overall holdings -- known as net long-term capital inflows in financial jargon -- fell 37 percent from elevated levels in August.

Amid political sensitivities over the level of US bonds held by Beijing, the emerging market giant -- excluding Hong Kong -- increased its holdings by 1.7 percent to nearly 884 billion dollars.

Japan meanwhile raised its Treasury holdings to 865 billion dollars, a more than three percent increase.

"The strong interest in Treasury bonds and notes points to a still-high level of risk aversion in global financial markets," said Tu Packard of Moody's Analytics.