US Treasuries Have Become Unappetizing for Foreign Central Banks and Governments

Treasury securities have lost their allure for foreign central banks and governments, whose holdings declined this year and in July dropped to $3.77 trillion at market value, roughly where they’d been in 2012, according to the Treasury Department’s TIC data.

But over this period, since 2012, the amount of Treasury securities outstanding has about tripled, according to the Dallas Fed market-value data (via St. Louis Fed). And inflation since 2012 was 48%. And the share of these “foreign official” holdings has collapsed from a share of 34% of marketable Treasury securities in 2012, and from a share of over 38% at the peak in 2007-2009, to a share of 12.8% in July, the lowest share since 1993.