For the fifth straight month, China dumped Treasury holdings in October (the latest data for which TIC is available)...

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Source: Bloomberg

This is the lowest level of Treasury Holdings since January 2017.

Broadly speaking, October was unremarkable in total foreign flows:

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Foreigners sold $20BN in TSYs in October, a reversal from their purcahses of $22.5BN in September.

They doubled down on purchases of Agencies, buying $48.9BN in October after buying $46.2BN in September.

And while they sold $21.5BN in corporate bonds, the second consecutive month of selling after selling $28.7BN in September.

They purchased $24.1BN in equities in October, the 6th consecutive month of purchases...

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But what really stood out, foreigners bought a record $262.8 billion in US equities in the last 12 months...

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As the chart shows, that is a huge swing from record selling of $214.6BN in just April of 2019.

After a record stretch of selling which ended in May 2020, foreign central banks bought US Treasury for 3 consecutive months in Aug, Sept, and Oct, the longest stretch of buying since June 2014...

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Belgium was the biggest buyer of USTs in October (cough China proxy cough), along with UK and India...

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Even so, however, foreign central bank net flows in the past 12 months is a negative $174.1BN, as they have been mostly selling US paper in the past year...

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Finally, we note that while Treasury holdings overall are rising modestly, but have a long way to go to match the de-dollarization trend seen in gold holdings over the past year...

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