September 2017 Headline Consumer Credit Growth Rate Grows

The headlines say consumer credit rate of annual growth increased from last month. Our analysis agrees.

Analyst Opinion of the Consumer Credit Situation

Not only does this data set suffer from backward revision (moderate to significant enough to change trends), but the use of compounding (projecting monthly change as annual change) by the Federal Reserve to determine consumer credit growth rates exaggerates the volatility in this data. The total consumer credit unadjusted growth in 2017 has been hovering around 6% year-over-year.

the default rate of consumer loans is now growing year-over-year,

that the amount of consumer credit outstanding relative to consumer expenditures is at 21st century highs.

Household Debt Payments As A Percent of Disposable Income is near all time lows.

Last month’s headline said:

In August, consumer credit increased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4-1/4 percent. Revolving credit increased at an annual rate of 7 percent, while nonrevolving credit increased at an annual rate of 3-1/4 percent.

This month’s headlines said:

Consumer credit increased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5-1/2 percent during the third quarter. Both revolving and nonrevolving credit increased at similar annual rates. In September, consumer credit increased at an annual rate of 6-3/4 percent.

Econintersect’s view:

Unadjusted Consumer Credit Outstanding

  Month- over- Month Growth Year- over- Year Growth Month- over- Month Growth without Student Loans Year- over- Year Growth without Student Loans Total +0.1 % +5.6 % +0.1 % +3.9 % Revolving +0.3 % +5.8 % n/a n/a Non- Revolving -0.0 % +5.5 % +0.1 % +2.9 %

Overall takeaways from this month’s data:

Student loan year-over-year growth rate has been decelerating gradually since the beginning of 2013 – and this month there was a slight decrease which wiped out the gains of the previous two months.

Student loans growth rate (US Government owned) decelerated 0.2 % month-over-month and year-over-year growth is 9.7 % year-over-year.

Revolving credit (e.g.credit cards – and this series includes no student loans) and had been slightly accelerating since 2010. This month there was a slight acceleration in the rate of year-over-year growth.

Year-over-Year Growth Rate Student Loans (Government Plus Private Sector – Not Current)