Foreign Central Banks Accelerate Treasury Selling

The U.S. Treasury released its TIC data this afternoon, which confirmed our priors that foreign central banks continue to sell off their Treasury holdings, down $98.4 billion in March and -$135.4 billion over the past 12 months.   Surprisingly, Japan was the biggest seller in March and not China, as we speculated. 

The fact that both the foreign central banks and now the Fed are net sellers in aggregate, who have been the largest buyers this century, is not market positive and suspect is going to a number on Treasury yield volatility over the next few years.    

Recall, Greenspan partially blamed the Fed’s loss of control of the yield curve during its 2004-06 tightening cycle on foreign central bank inflows into the Treasury market, which repressed long-term rates and kept the housing bubble raging even as the Fed raised the Fed Fund rate 425 bps.

Don’t be complacent and blindsided by what is going on in this corner of the world, folks.  What this space, it will soon be on the market’s radar.  

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