Foreigners Sold The Most US Stocks On Record In March, China Dumps TSY Holdings To Lowest Since 2010

Bonds were bid and stocks offered globally in March according to the latest TIC data…

• Foreigners bought $48.8BN in TSYs, down from $75.3BN in Feb

• Foreigners bought $32.4BN in Agencies, up from $21.3BN in Feb

• Foreigners bought $33.4BN in LT corporate bonds, up from $20.3BN in Feb

• Foreigners sold a record $94.3BN in corporate stocks, up from $25.4BN in sales in Feb

In TSYs, divergence between foreign official institutions (central banks, sov wealth funds) , which sold $32.4BN (the biggest drop since March 2020’s COVID collapse)…

…and foreign private institutions (investors) who bought $82.2BN…

It seems the world’s major foreign official institutions liquidated Treasuries for cash/liquidity as Putin invaded Ukraine, led by a $73.9 billion sale by Japan, and China dumping another $15.2 billion, to its lowest US Treasury holdings level since 2010…

Away from bonds, foreigners sold the most US stocks on record in March at $94.3bn (almost 4x more than the $25.4BN in February, and the most on record)…

On a trailing LTM basis, foreigners sold $180BN in US stocks, just shy of a record hit in late 2018 when the Fed was forced to reverse its tightening…

And finally, as Treasury holdings drop, gold reserves have surged to new record highs…

Source: Bloomberg

And all this as The Fed stops holding up the bond market with its buying and sanctions push some nations to prefer alternative assets to USTs.