(Bloomberg) — Chinese investors offloaded the most US bonds and stocks in four years in August, fueling speculation the authorities may have moved to beef up their war chest to defend a weakening yuan.
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The bulk of the $21.2 billion of sales were for Treasuries and US stocks, with funds in the Asian nation also cutting holdings of US agency debt, according to data from the US Department of the Treasury released on Wednesday. In August, the onshore yuan tumbled to the lowest level against the dollar since November, prompting Beijing to tell state-owned banks to step up intervention in the currency market.
“This could be to liquidate some bond holdings to obtain US dollar cash in case it is needed later to defend the yuan via intervention operations,” said Gareth Berry, a currency and rates strategist at Macquarie Group Ltd. in Singapore. “The same reason may go for why they sold stocks.”
Chinese investors sold a record $5.1 billion of US stocks in August, the data showed.
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