{"text":[[{"start":9.12,"text":"Foreign investors made a record $942bn in net purchases of US equities and investment fund shares in the 12 months to July, accelerating a shift in overseas investment towards American stocks and away from debt."}],[{"start":23.956,"text":"The flows represented the highest rolling 12-month total in Treasury data going back to 1985."}],[{"start":30.341,"text":"Net purchases of US equities and investment fund shares by foreign investors jumped to $426bn in the second quarter, up 62 per cent from the same period in 2025, and surpassing the previous quarterly record of $299bn in 2022, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis."}],[{"start":51.172,"text":"Monthly Treasury data show net purchases gained momentum through the second quarter, from $110bn in April to $182bn in June, before slowing to $3.7bn in July. Foreign investors remained net buyers for a sixth consecutive month."}],[{"start":68.83,"text":"The foreign inflows coincided with a gain of about 20 per cent for Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 in the year to July, with tech stocks including Sandisk, Western Digital and Intel among the best performers."}],[{"start":80.95,"text":"The S&P 500’s 14.9 per cent gain in the second quarter — which followed a sharp but shortlived sell-off triggered by the outbreak of the war in Iran — was its best run since the same period in 2020."}],[{"start":null,"text":"
"}],[{"start":94.4,"text":"The second-quarter surge was unusually large even compared with the elevated foreign demand of the past year. Foreign investors bought $263bn of US equities and funds in the second quarter of 2025 and $274bn in the final three months of last year."}],[{"start":110.963,"text":"Foreign demand for US debt moved in the opposite direction. Overseas investors bought a net $188bn of US debt securities in the second quarter, down from $314bn in the first."}],[{"start":123.428,"text":"That came as China’s reported holdings of US Treasuries fell to $618bn, their lowest level since August 2008, as Beijing diversifies into gold, agency bonds and other assets."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":136.379,"text":"Some of the second-quarter increase may reflect purchases deferred from the unusually weak first quarter, said Brad Setser, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, but the broader trend remained one of record buying of US equities."}],[{"start":149.465,"text":"Strong equity markets in geographies including Korea and Taiwan led their investors to seek US equities to address concentration risk."}],[{"start":158.63,"text":"“Those Korean stocks were going up — Samsung, Hynix — and they were hitting concentration limits. They diversify out of Korea into US equities or into other global equities. So we just there’s been a whole. You just rarely see 200-plus billion of outflows from Korea into global equities, mostly US equities,” Setser added. “There’s been a shift in patterns of flows that’s very consistent with this larger than usual inflow with the USD.”"}],[{"start":187.072,"text":"The flip side, he added, was less overseas demand for Treasuries at a time when the US is running a large fiscal deficit."}],[{"start":194.67,"text":"“It feels like the world is very high on US equity,” Setser said."}],[{"start":202.08,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1790420151_1573.mp3"}