Staggering Decline In Saudi Arabia's Cash Reserves Continues -- January 14, 2017

Source: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/saudi-arabia/foreign-exchange-reserves.

Compare these two graphs, taking particular note of the size of the bars for May, 2016, and comparing most recent data.

First, the "old" graph:

Now, compare to the "new" graph with updated data.

There are several things to note:

• the right hand (vertical) axis has changed
  cash reserves had a slight uptick in May compared to April (2016) 
• from June, 2015, to November, 2015, one could argue the decrease in cash reserves was steep but somewhat "smooth"
• in the "old" graph, there was a deep drop-off in January, 2016
• although the decline seemed to flatten a bit in spring / early summer, 2016, it took another drop by autumn, 2016
• but, look at that huge drop-off in November, 2016 -- in percentage terms, it looks like the biggest drop since June, 2015

I don't know what others might say, but to me this is quite staggering.

This is occurring at same time, Saudi's foreign policy (war in Yemen) costs are increasing, as wells as internal security (terrorism; subsidies to keep population content) are increasing.

By October - November, 2016, oil prices had started to recover, and yet Saudi's cash reserves were falling faster than ever.

At $50-oil, and a national budget based on $80-oil (wink-wink), I can't imagine this graph will turn around any time soon.

Projection from same source: