The U.S. Department of the Treasury today released Treasury International Capital (TIC) data for December 2012. The next release, which will report on data for January 2013, is scheduled for March 15, 2013.
The sum total in December of all net foreign acquisitions of long-term securities, short-term U.S. securities, and banking flows was a monthly net TIC inflow of $25.2 billion. Of this, net foreign private inflows were $26.1 billion, and net foreign official inflows were negative $0.9 billion.
Foreign residents increased their holdings of long-term U.S. securities in December – net purchases were $76.5 billion. Net purchases by private foreign investors were $67.3 billion, and net purchases by foreign official institutions were $9.1 billion.
At the same time, U.S. residents increased their holdings of long-term foreign securities, with net purchases of $12.3 billion.
Taking into account transactions in both foreign and U.S. securities, the net foreign purchases of long-term securities were $64.2 billion. After including adjustments, such as estimates of unrecorded principal payments to foreigners on U.S. asset-backed securities, the overall net foreign acquisition of long-term securities is estimated to have been $43.2 billion in December.
Foreign residents decreased their holdings of U.S. Treasury bills by $11.9 billion. Foreign resident holdings of all dollar-denominated short-term U.S. securities and other custody liabilities decreased by $5.6 billion.
Banks’ own net dollar-denominated liabilities to foreign residents decreased by $12.5 billion.
Complete data are available on the Treasury website at:
www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Pages/index.aspx