Treasury International Capital - TIC

BOP. Got you.

The balance of payments (See: Balance of Payments (BOP)) tracks the balance of international payments, including all transactions where capital flows in and out of the U.S.

The Treasury International Capital (TIC) reports that data to BOP. TIC measures the portfolio capital flowing outward from the U.S., as well as inward toward the U.S., sans direct investment. U.S. branches of foreign banks, as well as offshore branches of U.S. banks, are also included. Calculating all of the pluses and minuses leaves TIC with the net foreign portfolio investment flow into the U.S.

TIC’s data is compiled by the U.S. Treasury, which gets passed along to the Bureau of Economic analysis to fill in that data for the U.S.’s balance of payments data. That tidbit will help you win a trivia contest one day, we promise.

TIC is one of many economic indicators. Unlike many that are contained mainly within the U.S., TIC takes into account foreign flows of money, which is kind of significant, since the U.S. dollar is a big deal in the world. You can even find them in Cambodian corner store cash registers.

TIC shows the strength and direction of the U.S. dollar...particularly, the net foreign demand for U.S. Treasuries. If the dollar started to look “meh” to international investors, we’d know that by looking at TIC.