NEW YORK (Reuters] – The net foreign inflows into Treasuries rose in February for the fourth month straight to $75.3 billion. Data from the U.S. Treasury showed this on Friday.

This includes Treasuries purchased by private investors abroad and $16.2 billion sold by foreign institutions.

Treasuries have been purchased by foreigners in 10 out of the past 12 months. This includes a record monthly net purchase of $118billion in March 2021.

The net inflow to Treasury International Capital (TIC), was $162.6 billion, compared with a January inflow of $287.4 million. This included net foreign private flows of $198.4 million and net foreign official flows of negative $35.8.

U.S. yields rose, resulting in overall foreign buying. U.S. benchmark 10-year Treasury yields topped at 2.255% in February. It was at its highest point since July 2019 and closed the month at 1.8216%. About 4 basis points more than January.

In February, the yield on the 2-year note increased to 1.4363% from 1.1846% at January’s end. It topped 1.6430% in December 2019. This was because markets expected that the Federal Reserve would soon raise interest rates in an attempt to reduce inflation and slow rising prices.

March saw the Fed increase its policy interest rate by 0.25 points. It was also the first rise since 2018 and it announced plans to reduce its $8.5 trillion balance, which had been ballooned through pandemic-era bond purchase. There are likely to be more rate increases this year as well as next.

The foreign Treasury securities holdings rose from $7.661 billion in January to $7.714 trillion today.

Japan’s Treasury securities holdings increased by more than $3Billion to $1.306 Trillion. Japan was the biggest holder of Treasuries outside of the United States.

China, which is the second largest Treasuries holder, had its holdings drop to $1.054 trillion, from $1.060 billion in January.