United Kingdom Has More Than Doubled Their Holdings Over The Past 12 Months

Foreign governments currently own roughly $4.66 trillion of US Treasury securities.

As of September 2011, the five largest foreign holders of US debt were:

China - $1.1483 trillion
Japan - $956.8 billion
United Kingdom - $421.6 billion
Oil Exporters - $229.9 billion
Brazil - $206.2 billion

There are no real surprises on this list. However, when you look at the YoY (Year over Year) changes, some pretty interesting data presents itself.

Let's look at the largest increases in US debt holdings over the past year as a percentage of total holdings. Here are the five biggest increases to start:

United Kingdom, +121.31%
France, +88.41%
Canada, +50.09%
Chile, +44.62%
Turkey, +43.53%

Now let's look at the top five largest decreases over the past year:

Russia, -45.41%
Ireland, -33.98%
Mexico, -26.56%
Australia, -25.56%
Hong Kong, -17.36%

--

Now let's look at the top five holders of US debt once again to see how the size of their holdings have fluctuated over the last year:

China, -0.31%
Japan, +11.15%
UK, +121.31%
Oil Exporters, +6.73%
Brazil, +13.92%

With the United States needing to borrow trillions more over the coming years, they will need countries such as China, Japan and the United Kingdom to keep buying.

Source: Biggest Foreign US Debt Holders

Filed under: General Knowledge