#balance-of-payments

The stock of external wealth — how much each economy owns abroad versus how much the rest of the world owns of it, live from the OECD's official balance-of-payments statistics, no key. Where the current account is the yearly flow of external lending or borrowing, the net international investment position (Net IIP) is the accumulated stock those flows pile up into: a country running persistent surpluses builds a large positive Net IIP and becomes a net creditor to the world (Norway, Japan, Germany, Switzerland), while persistent deficits build a large negative one — a net debtor, like the United States. The Net IIP is one of the deepest gauges of external sustainability and a structural anchor for a currency: a big positive position earns net income on foreign assets and is a buffer in a crisis, while a large negative one leaves a currency exposed to the willingness of foreigners to keep funding it. The board endpoint ranks economies by their Net IIP as a share of GDP — the size-neutral cross-country screen — from biggest net creditors to biggest net debtors. The gross endpoint ranks by gross external assets as a share of GDP, a measure of financial openness and international integration where small financial hubs tower with foreign assets worth multiples of GDP. The country endpoint gives one economy's full external balance sheet: the Net IIP in dollars and as a share of GDP, its gross foreign assets and liabilities, and the net position broken down by function — direct investment, portfolio investment, other investment and reserve assets, which sum to the net position — with a plain-language read. Each reading carries its own quarter and discontinued series are filtered out. This is the external-stock / net-foreign-wealth cut — the companion to, and distinct from, the current-account balance (the yearly flow, not the accumulated stock), trade growth, and the gross-government-debt and debt-service feeds (public-sector domestic debt, not the whole economy's external position). Positions are in billions of US dollars and percent of GDP; figures are quarterly end-of-period stocks.

api.oanor.com/netiip-api

Whether each economy earns more from the rest of the world than it spends — the current-account balance, live from the OECD's official balance-of-payments statistics, no key. The current account is the single most important external-balance number in macro: it nets a country's trade in goods and services, its cross-border investment income, and its transfers into one figure. A surplus means the economy is a net lender to the world and is accumulating foreign claims; a deficit means it is a net borrower, financing its spending with foreign capital. Persistent current-account positions are one of the deepest drivers of exchange rates — surplus currencies (the yen, the euro-area core, the Nordics) tend to be structurally supported, while large-deficit currencies depend on continued capital inflows and are vulnerable when risk appetite turns. The board endpoint ranks economies by their current-account balance as a share of GDP — the size-neutral cross-country screen — from biggest surpluses to biggest deficits. The goods endpoint ranks by the merchandise (goods) trade balance as a share of GDP, separating the trade story from services and income. The country endpoint gives one economy's full external decomposition: the headline balance as a share of GDP, the goods / services / primary-income / secondary-income balances in US dollars (which sum exactly to the current account) and as shares of GDP, the six-quarter trend, and a plain-language read of whether the position is improving or deteriorating and what drives it. Each reading carries its own quarter and discontinued series are filtered out. This is the external-balance / balance-of-payments cut — distinct from trade growth (real export and import growth rates, the flow of volumes, not the net balance), and from the inflation, labour-cost and confidence feeds. The headline is percent of GDP; the decomposition is in billions of US dollars per quarter and percent of GDP; figures are quarterly, seasonally adjusted.

api.oanor.com/currentaccount-api