Better data generated by a new government survey drove the large upward revisions in U.S. international investment position statistics released today that trimmed the United States’ investment deficit with the rest of the world between 2010 and 2012.
The Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve Board conducted the new survey called Aggregate Holdings of Long-Term Securities by U.S. and Foreign Residents (SLT), which includes information from investment funds, mainly hedge funds, that wasn’t included in previous Treasury International Capital (TIC) surveys.
BEA also incorporated data from the 2011 Benchmark Survey of U.S. Ownership of Foreign Securities (SHC) and the 2012 Annual Survey of Foreign Portfolio Holdings of U.S. Securities (SHLA) that also included the new investment fund reporting.
Importantly, the new SLT survey provides more timely monthly data that’s now incorporated in the recently released quarterly U.S. international investment positions (from the fourth quarter of 2011 to the first quarter of 2013). Because of that, the BEA no longer needs to project these positions based on TIC surveys that provided this information only on an annual basis.
BEA revised the net international investment position for quarters in 2010 and 2011 to reflect the accumulation of new holdings of foreign securities reported in the SLT and in the SHC at the end of 2011. BEA revised the third and fourth quarters of 2011 to reflect the accumulation of new holdings of U.S. securities. Annual investment position estimates for 2010 and 2011 completed a year ago also reflected new holdings of U.S. securities in the SHLA at the end of June 2011.
Here are some of the revision highlights:
- The U.S. net international investment position was revised upward an average of $432.8 billion per quarter (becoming less negative) in 2012, and revisions from the SLT accounted for 84% of the revision.
- The U.S. net international investment position was revised upward an average of $96.5 billion per quarter in 2010 and $297.4 billion per quarter in 2011. Revisions from the accumulation of new holdings of U.S. and foreign securities as reported at the end of 2011 more than accounted for the revisions; revisions from other source data were partly offsetting.
- The U.S. net international investment position was revised upward an average of $39.8 billion per quarter in 2009 due to the incorporation of the 2009 Benchmark Survey of U.S. Direct Investment Abroad.
For more on the U.S. net international investment position, read the full report.