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The FPIS data files are structured in a way that complicates their harvest (although TIC has a list of five-digit country geo codes, they are used in only some of the files; footnotes are appended to geo names rather than existing in a separate field). In response to the latest set of changes to the reported corpus, we have improved our process, and have loaded five years of data (including the current year) to correct any potential errors that have accumulated.
As of 2018, 225 individual countries and ten composites are reported.
The various data files produced by TIC are not consistent in their naming of countries. These names do not necessarily match those used by other sources or in other languages, but Data Buffet carries them under consistent geo codes.
The corpus of geos is subject to change:
- National reorganization. For example, the successive fragmentation of the former Yugoslavia.
- Disaggregation. For example, the Netherlands Antilles was decomposed to three geos: Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba; Curacao; and Sint Maarten.
- The composite geo named "total other countries" (IOTHE) ends at 2014 and was replaced with "Australia/Oceania" (IOCEA) starting 2015.
- 18 detailed concepts for Saudi Arabia (ISAU) started at 2015.
Not all concept-geo pairs exist.
Series may have gaps, especially when the holdings are small. For example, Sao Tome and Principe (ISTP) is reported in 2014 and 2018. Consequently, we will add and remove the Data Buffet "discontinued" marker as needed.
The dataset reports 12 concepts in the preliminary phase (February) and an additional 15 in the final phase (April).
The series reside in the historical catalog (United States » Financial » Treasury International Capital » Annual » Foreign portfolio holdings of U.S. securities).
References
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