One month ago when looking at the December update of foreign holdings of US Treasuries, and specifically the two largest foreign creditors, we said that China "sold another $6 billion in Treasurys in the last month of 2014, which would have made its US treasury holdings equal with those of Japan, if only Tokyo hadn't also sold over $10 billion in the same month." Moments ago the January update was released, and while China continued selling US paper, liquidating another $5.2 billion in January and bringing its new total to the lowest since January 2013, Japan - yes that Japan whose central bank is now moentizing 100% of its own debt issuance because the country is now effectively insolvent and absent constant monetization of its debt it is finished - bought $8 billion in US debt, in the process trying China as America's largest foreign creditor for the first time in history, with both nations holdings $1,239 trillion in US TSYs. But where things got truly surprising, is when looking at gross long-term flows of foreign capital, where we find that between private and official buyer and sellers of US assets, in January a record $55 billion in US Treasurys was sold - precisely in the month in which the yield on the 10Y plummeted, indicating once again that a short squeeze in syntehtic exposure via futures and derivatives (because shorting the 10Y was the other most popular hedge fund position entering 2015 alongside being long the USD) has far greater price formation power than what someone does with a measly $55 billion in underlying Treasurys (very relevant for the debate of physical vs paper gold) in any one month.