Recent Updates
- Euro area: Flash Consumer Confidence (Apr)
- Ireland: Producer & Wholesale Price Indexes (Mar)
- UK: Capital Issuance (Mar)
- Spain: Trade in Constant Prices, Trade in Goods (Feb)
- Germany: Federal Budget, PPI, Monthly Tax Revenue (Mar), Short-term Indicator (Feb), Public Sector Finance (Q4)
- Colombia: Imports (Feb); Brazil: IPCA-15 (Apr)
- Turkey: Non-Domestic PPI, House Sales, Central Government and Domestic Debt by Instrument, External Debt by Lender, Domestic
- more updates...
Economy in Brief
German PPI Accelerates
The German year-on-year PPI has generally been decelerating since early 2017...
U.S. Leading Economic Indicators Signal Continued Expansion
The Conference Board's Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators increased 0.3% during March...
Philadelphia Fed Factory Conditions Improve; Prices Jump
The Philadelphia Fed reported that its General Factory Sector Business Conditions Index rose to 23.2 during April...
U.S. Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance Are Little Changed
Initial unemployment insurance claims slipped to 232,000 (-6.1% y/y) during the week ended April 14...
U.K. Retail Sales Fall
U.K. GDP is expected to cool its jets when the first quarter GDP number is released...
by Tom Moeller May 9, 2011
The recent recovery in consumer spending has been accompanied by a
combination of strengthened use of non-revolving credit and less use of
revolving usage. Reported Friday, overall consumer credit rose $6.0B
during March following a little-revised February gain of $7.6B. A $5.0B
increase has been expected by Action Economics. Credit has risen strongly
during the last six months following declines from 2008 and into 2010.
Non-revolving credit, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of the total, rose for the eighth straight month. The $4.1B increase pulled the y/y change to 2.8% following a 1.5% increase last year. Loans by the Federal government rose 69.3% y/y but finance company lending fell 6.4%. Commercial bank credit fell 7.7% y/y while saving institutions credit was unchanged. Nonfinancial business credit fell 1.1% and pools of securitized assts fell 20.2%.
Consumers took a break from paying down their revolving credit outstanding balances for only the second month since September 2008. It rose $1.9B during March but was still down 5.2% y/y. Prior to 2009, revolving credit usage had never been negative y/y. Pools of securitized assets dropped 13.0% y/y and commercial bank credit fell 8.0%. Finance company credit rose 5.3% and savings institution credit rose by nearly one-quarter. Credit union credit rose 2.9% and nonfinancial business credit remained unchanged.
During the last ten years, there has been a 52% correlation between the y/y change in credit outstanding and the change in personal consumption expenditures, although the correlation recently has weakened considerably. These figures are the major input to the Fed's quarterly Flow of Funds accounts for the household sector.
The consumer credit data are available in Haver's USECON database. The Action Economics figures are in the AS1REPNA database.
Reaping the Full Benefits of Financial Openness is Friday's speech by Fed Vice Chair Janet L. Yellen and it can be found here.
Consumer Credit
Outstanding (M/M Chg, SAAR) |
Mar | Feb | Jan | Y/Y | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total | $6.0B | $7.6B | $4.4B | 0.0% | -1.7% | -4.4% | 1.5% |
Revolving | 1.9 | -2.6 | -3.9 | -5.2 | -7.5 | -9.6 | 1.7 |
Non-revolving | 4.1 | 10.1 | 8.3 | 2.8 | 1.5 | -1.3 | 1.5 |