Investment Patterns.

The article discusses the patterns in U.S. investment as of November 2012. In 2005, U.S. direct investment abroad fell significantly as U.S. parent firms reduced the amount of reinvested earnings going to their foreign affiliates for distribution to the U.S. parent firms in order to take advantage of one-time tax provisions in the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004. By the end of 2011, U.S. assets abroad are estimated to have reached 20.6 trillion dollars.