Foreign Central Bank Buying of Treasuries Rising

Much has been made at the usual sites about Foreign Central Banks supposedly not buying US Treasuries. One has to always take these claims with a good dose of skepticism.

Here is an updated chart of the Custodial Holdings of US Treasuries by Foreign Central Banks. As you can see, after plunging lower in March of this year  ( remember this was the result - so we were confidently told  of Russia selling its Treasuries which supposedly heralded the end of the Dollar), Treasury buying has picked back up considerably.

Treasury holdings at the beginning of this year were near $2.997 TRILLION. As of today, they are currently at 2.981 TRILLION. That is down $16 billion on the year thus far. Not much when all things are considered.

It is going to be most revealing when we finally get the updated Treasury International Capital flows data for the month of June ( we will get that in August, next month) so that we can get a look into how the  Treasury Department moves the allocation of Treasury holdings to the source nation instead of the intermediary nation.