Press Center

February 27, 2009
tg-42

Washington, DC – The U.S. Department of Treasury today released preliminary data from a survey of foreign portfolio holdings of U.S. securities at end-June 2008 on the U.S. Treasury web site at http://www.treas.gov/tic/fpis.html. A revised table on Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities, where estimates through end-December 2008 are based in part on survey data, is also released at http://www.treas.gov/tic/ticsec2.html (on line 1 of Part A). Final survey results, which will include additional detail as well as possible revisions to the preliminary data, will be reported on April 30, 2009. The survey was undertaken jointly by the U.S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The next survey will be for end-June 2009, and preliminary data are expected to be released by February 26, 2010.

Complementary surveys measuring U.S. holdings of foreign securities are also carried out annually. Data from the most recent survey, reporting on securities held on year-end 2008, are currently being processed. Preliminary results are expected to be reported by August 31, 2009.

Overall Preliminary Results

The survey measured foreign holdings of U.S. securities as of June 30, 2008, to be $10,324 billion, with $2,969 billion held in U.S. equities, $6,494 billion in U.S. long-term debt securities1 (of which $1,532 billion are holdings of asset-backed securities (ABS) 2 and $4,962 billion are holdings of non-ABS securities), and $861 billion held in U.S. short-term debt securities. The previous survey, conducted as of June 30, 2007, measured total foreign holdings of U.S. securities at $9,772 billion, with holdings of $3,130 billion in U.S. equities, $6,007 billion in U.S. long-term debt securities, and $635 billion in short-term U.S. debt securities (see Table 1).

1. Long-term debt securities have an original term-to-maturity of more than one year.
2. Asset-backed securities are backed by pools of assets, such as pools of residential home mortgages or credit card receivables, which give the security owners claims against the cash flows generated by the underlying assets. Unlike most other debt securities, these securities generally repay both principal and interest on a regular basis, reducing the principal outstanding with each payment cycle.

Table 1. Foreign holdings of U.S. securities, by type of security, as of recent survey dates
(Billions of dollars)

Table 2. Foreign holdings of U.S. securities, by country and type of security, for the major investing countries into the U.S., as of June 30, 2008
(Billions of dollars)

1. Excludes Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, which are reported separately.
2. Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates.

REPORTS

• Preliminary Report on Foreign Holdings of U.S. Securities at End-June 2008