Figures released this week by the Treasury Department showed that Americans spent a net 40.3 billion dollars on overseas securities in March, making that the second-heaviest outflow ever, trailing only the 48.7 billion dollars for last December.

    For the 12 months through March, Americans bought a record 277 billion dollars in foreign long-term securities.

    Nonetheless, they are important because the United States needs to attract foreign investments to offset the huge trade deficit, which is only starting to decline, said the report. For the 12 months through March, that deficit came to 754 billion dollars.

    The figures show that Americans bought a net 168.9 billion dollars of foreign bonds over the 12-month period. By contrast, for all of 2005, the figure was only 45.1 billion dollars.

    The attraction of foreign stocks has also been strong, but is not at record levels. The 108.3 billion dollars purchased during the 12-month period is well below the record of 140 billion dollars, set in the 12 months through last May.

    The popularity of foreign stocks has come as foreign markets consistently have done better than the American one, said the report.

    For the 12 months through April, the Standard & Poor's 500, a prominent index of large American companies, was up 13.1 percent. But the Morgan Stanley Capital International EAFE index, which covers all developed countries except the United States, rose 17 percent.

    If Americans keep sending their dollars overseas -- whether to buy socks or stocks -- that could put further pressure on the value of those dollars, the report said.