Sort Order: Latest Post on Top - Latest Post Last            Post Reply

PAR 07:52:16 GMT - 07/01/2014

Belgium preparation for match against USA . Buying US treasuries ? Over the last six months Belgium has started to behave eccentrically, even by Belgian standards. No, the small country of 11 million has not decided to stop making chocolate or waffles. It has decided to increase its buying of U.S. Treasury bonds...in a very big way. According to latest U.S. Treasury Department data, since August of 2013 entities in Belgium have purchased and held a stunning $215 billion of U.S. Treasuries. This figure is equivalent to about half the country's annual GDP, and equates to almost $20,000 for every living Belgian. Prior to that time, Belgium had held its cache fairly steady at around $170-$190 billion. But by March, that total had increased by almost 130% (to $381 billion) in just seven months. The purchases represented 61% of the total increase in foreign holdings of U.S. Treasuries over that time frame. Given the fact that Belgium, as of last September, had less than 3% of the Treasury bonds held by foreign sources, this is strange behavior indeed.

Paris ib  08:09:04 GMT - 07/01/2014

We have the strange Belgium U.S. bond buying. Attributed by Paul Craig Roberts to back door QE by the FED. We have the strange saga of the German Gold held by the NY FED. Almost none returned and now the order to return it to Germany has been rescinded, which I suppose is good news since apparently the German Gold is long gone. We have an unpopular President and and unpopular Congress and a foreign policy which is only popular with a few chinless deviants, Merkel and Hollande among them, but is not increasing confidence in the current leadership of the U.S...... USD positive? No.