According to the report from the People's Bank of China (PBoC), China's foreign exchange reserves (the world's largest) fell in October, and were below economists' forecasts, as the yuan weakened against the U.S. dollar.
The PBoC said foreign exchange reserves declined to $3,261 trillion from $3,316 trillion in September. Economists had expected a drop to $3.29 trillion. The combined effects of currency translation and asset price changes led to the decline in reserves in October.
The US dollar index rose by 3.18% in October, while the yuan fell by 1.43% against the US currency.
The data also showed that China held 72.80 million fine troy ounces of gold. Gold holdings have remained unchanged for the 6th month in a row. Meanwhile, the value of gold reserves increased by $7.59 billion to $199.06 billion. The share of gold in the PBOC's overall reserves, a key gauge of many central banks' holdings for gold, reached 5.7% at the end of October vs 4.9% at the end of April.