Foreign holdings of local‐currency government bonds, as a percentage of total domestic public debt outstanding, have run at around 37 percent. This share has remained relatively stable in the wake of brusque market reactions to talk of eventual tapering of Federal Reserve asset purchases last year and so far continues to do so.
A high concentration of these holdings in long tranches of the yield curve provides some basis for believing that many investors see their positions as a long-term bet. In other words, perhaps they are here to stay.