Description of Cross-border Holdings of Securities
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Cross-border holdings of long-term securities (securities with an
original term-to-maturity in excess of one year) are measured at market
value through security-level surveys (that is, information is reported
separately for each security) that collect data from custodians, issuers,
and investors. Previously, such surveys were conducted relatively
infrequently: surveys of foreign holdings of U.S. securities were
conducted about once every five years, beginning in 1974; surveys of
U.S. holdings of foreign securities were conducted about once every three
or four years, but only beginning in 1994. Beginning in 2002, annual
surveys of foreign holdings of U.S. securities are conducted as of
end-June on TIC Form SHL/SHLA; beginning in 2003, annual surveys of U.S. holdings of foreign
securities are conducted as of end-December on annual TIC Form SHC/SHCA. Because these data on
holdings are security-specific, they permit extensive verification and
thus are considered highly reliable. But because the data require
thorough editing, they are available only after a lag of about one year.
Data have been collected for short-term securities (securities with an
original term-to-maturity of one year or less) beginning with the survey
of U.S. holdings of foreign securities as of December 2001 and with the
survey of foreign holdings of U.S. securities as of June 2002.
Last Updated:
July 25, 2007
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