China to 'liquidate' US Treasuries, not dollars

The Chinese certainly can their marginal purchases of US Treasuries, but partial or complete liquidation could prove difficult in the real world. For starters, to whom do they plan to sell? Also, how could they execute large sales without alerting the market of their intentions? The market is very efficient at front-running liquidation efforts.

Headline: China to 'liquidate' US Treasuries, not dollars

The debt markets have been warned.

A key rate setter-for China's central bank let slip – or was it a slip? – that Beijing aims to run down its portfolio of US debt as soon as safely possible.

"The incremental parts of our of our foreign reserve holdings should be invested in physical assets," said Li Daokui at the World Economic Forum in the very rainy city of Dalian – former Port Arthur from Russian colonial days.

"We would like to buy stakes in Boeing, Intel, and Apple, and maybe we should invest in these types of companies in a proactive way."

"Once the US Treasury market stabilizes we can liquidate more of our holdings of Treasuries," he said.

Source: blogs.telegraph.co.uk

To my knowledge, this is the first time that a top adviser to China's central bank has uttered the word "liquidate".

Robert