November 2012 Consumer Credit Growing At Pre-Recession Rates

Written by Steven Hansen The headline said: In November, consumer credit increased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 7 percent. Revolving credit increased at an annual rate of 1 percent, while nonrevolving credit increased at an annual rate of 9-1/2 percent. Econintersect takeaway from the data: November 2012 unadjusted consumer credit was 26.6% driven by student loans. In other words credit expanded even ignoring student loans. Using the Feds 7% seasonally adjusted annual rate, it means that total consumer credit expansion rate (ignoring student loans) is approximately 5%. Credit Card usage is growing only marginally, but the growth is in non-revolving loans (cars, boats, trailers, etc). The market expected consumer credit to expand $8.0 to $10.6 billion versus the seasonally adjusted expansion of $16.0 billion reported.   Read more »