Foreign Portfolio Holdings of U.S. Securities
The survey measured foreign holdings of U.S. securities as of June 30, 2008 at $10,322 billion, of which $9,463 billion were holdings of U.S. long-term securities (original term-tomaturity in excess of one year) and $858 billion were holdings of U.S. short-term securities (Table 1).
Table 1. Foreign Holdings of U.S. securities, by type of security, as of selected survey dates.
In the previous survey as of June 30, 2007, total foreign holdings amounted to $9,772 billion. The increase in foreign holdings over the 12-month period from June 2007 to June 2008 – $550 billion – was considerably smaller than the increase recorded in each of the previous three surveys. Foreign holdings of equities decreased $161 billion to a level a little less than $3 trillion, in large part reflecting valuation losses from declines in stock prices over this period. However, foreign holdings of U.S. long-term debt securities also grew more slowly than in previous years, increasing only $487 billion to a level just below $6.5 trillion. Foreign holdings of long-term Treasuries increased $246 billion, accounting for half of the total increase in holdings of long-term debt. Holdings of long-term agency and corporate debt securities increased $160 billion and $82 billion, respectively. The increase in holdings of corporate debt was notably smaller than the $717 billion increase recorded in the previous survey. Foreign holdings of U.S. short-term securities increased $223 billion to $858 billion, a considerably larger increase than in previous years. Increased holdings of U.S. Treasury bills and certificates accounted for $150 billion, or about two-thirds, of this increase, with holdings of short-term agencies accounting for most of the remainder.
All holdings were measured at market value as of the survey dates. With the exception of zero-coupon debt securities, all market values reflect "clean prices"; that is, values are computed exclusive of accrued interest.
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