Central Banks

Central Banks Hoard Cash in Case They Need to Save Their Currencies

  • Foreign Treasury holdings slid by $81 billion in past month
  • At same time, usage of foreign Fed facility rose $61 billion
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Central banks around the world are swapping their stockpiles of US Treasuries for cash -- just in case they need to intervene in markets to bolster their currencies.

Foreign monetary officials purged $29 billion in Treasury securities in the week ended Oct. 5, bringing the four-week decline in holdings to $81 billion, according to Federal Reserve data. It’s the most-extreme outflow since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, leaving total holdings at $2.91 trillion.