Overseas Investors Flooded Back Into Treasurys In September

Overseas investors flooded back into U.S. markets in September, according to the Treasury International Capital, or TIC, report released Tuesday. Foreign private investors purchased a net $89.8 billion of fixed-income coupon securities in September, the fastest pace since February, and up from $26.5 billion in August and net sales of $3.9 billion in July. Foreigners bought $48.2 billion of Treasury bonds and notes, $21 billion of government agency bonds and $20.7 billion of corporate bonds, according to the report. These are the largest monthly purchases of U.S. corporate bonds by foreign investors since December 2008, said Thomas Simons, a government-debt economist in New York at Jefferies. Simons said that foreign investors have been buying U.S. bonds at a healthy but erratic pace over the past two years and were most likely attracted to the relatively high yields on U.S. debt in September.