Our international representative network got a boost in 1986, when the Bundesbank opened representative offices in New York and Tokyo as entities detached from the official German missions in those two cities. Moreover, a number of years ago we added trading desks to both representative offices. These trading desks now fulfil an important role in the administration of the German reserve assets.
In financial markets, a greater sense of caution among investors seemed to bolster the demand for Treasury and other fixed-income securities at the expense of equities; the price of crude oil moved up, as did the prices of gasoline and home heating oil; and consumer confidence sagged further.