Markets
Visualizing Who Holds U.S. Debt Internationally
Visualizing Who Holds U.S. Debt Internationally
We recommend viewing the full-size version of today’s infographic by clicking here.
Everyone knows that the U.S. Federal Government has roughly $20 trillion of debt. A question we often get, however, is who exactly owns all these treasuries? And if it’s held abroad by countries like China, what portion do they hold?
Today’s infographic comes from TitleMax, and it looks at who owns U.S. debt internationally, as well as the debt from other countries that is held by the U.S.
Who Holds U.S. Debt?
Federal government debt in the United States can be broadly placed in two categories: “Debt held by the public” and “Intragovernmental debt”. The former category includes securities held by individual investors, corporations, local and state governments, the Federal Reserve, and foreign governments.
Meanwhile, intragovernmental debt includes securities held in accounts administered by other federal authorities. This category, for example, would include treasuries owed to the Social Security Trust Fund.
Here’s the tallies of these two categories as of December 2016:
Federal U.S. Debt (Billions) | |
---|---|
Debt held by the public | $14,202.1 |
Intragovernmental debt | $5,395.7 |
Total debt | $19,597.8 |
Debt Held By the Public
“Debt held by the public” is the most interesting of these, and it can be further broken down:
Entity | U.S. Debt Held (Billions) |
---|---|
Foreign/International | $6,154.9 |
Federal Reserve* | $2,490.6 |
Mutual Funds | $1,524.8 |
State and Local Gov'ts (incl. pensions) | $899.4 |
Banks | $620.3 |
Private pension funds | $549.1 |
Insurance Companies | $344.8 |
U.S. Savings Bonds | $165.8 |
Other | $1,449.1 |
*Note: Data for Fed is for marketable securities only. All data in this table from September 2016.
About 43% of all debt held by the public is actually owned by foreign governments, corporations, and individuals.
U.S. Debt Held Internationally
Here’s how that breaks down by country:
Country | U.S. Debt Held (Billions) |
---|---|
Japan | $1,090.8 |
China | $1,058.4 |
Ireland | $288.2 |
Cayman Islands | $263.5 |
Brazil | $259.2 |
Switzerland | $229.9 |
Luxembourg | $223.4 |
United Kingdom | $217.1 |
Hong Kong | $191.4 |
Taiwan | $189.3 |
India | $118.2 |
Saudi Arabia | $102.8 |
Others | $1,771.7 |
Note: This data is from December 2016
Markets
Will Tesla Lose Its Spot in the Magnificent Seven?
We visualize the recent performance of the Magnificent Seven stocks, uncovering a clear divergence between the group’s top and bottom names.
Will Tesla Lose Its Spot in the Magnificent Seven?
This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.
In this graphic, we visualize the year-to-date (YTD) performance of the “Magnificent Seven”, a leading group of U.S. tech stocks that gained prominence in 2023 as the replacement of FAANG stocks.
All figures are as of March 12, 2024, and are listed in the table below.
Rank | Company | YTD Change (%) |
---|---|---|
1 | Nvidia | 90.8 |
2 | Meta | 44.3 |
3 | Amazon | 16.9 |
4 | Microsoft | 12 |
5 | 0.2 | |
6 | Apple | -6.7 |
7 | Tesla | -28.5 |
From these numbers, we can see a clear divergence in performance across the group.
Nvidia and Meta Lead
Nvidia is the main hero of this show, setting new all-time highs seemingly every week. The chipmaker is currently the world’s third most valuable company, with a valuation of around $2.2 trillion. This puts it very close to Apple, which is currently valued at $2.7 trillion.
The second best performer of the Magnificent Seven has been Meta, which recently re-entered the trillion dollar club after falling out of favor in 2022. The company saw a massive one-day gain of $197 billion on Feb 2, 2024.
Apple and Tesla in the Red
Tesla has lost over a quarter of its value YTD as EV hype continues to fizzle out. Other pure play EV stocks like Rivian and Lucid are also down significantly in 2024.
Meanwhile, Apple shares have struggled due to weakening demand for its products in China, as well as the company’s lack of progress in the artificial intelligence (AI) space.
Investors may have also been disappointed to hear that Apple’s electric car project, which started a decade ago, has been scrapped.
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