Consumer Credit Up in March

The Fed's consumer credit numbers are probably the least reliable statistic I watch, as they get revised all over the place for months after the initial report. Nevertheless I'll pretend that today's numbers are somewhat valid:

http://www.federalreserve.gov/Releases/G19/Current/ March saw a sizeable jump in revolving credit, i.e. credit cards. Home equity lines may be tapped and some consumers may be turning to credit cards as a last resort.

Auto finance companies lowered interest rates again in February, presumably because sales have been bad.
The size of securizized pools of revolving assets rose substantially during Q1 to $429.1 billion. Your pension plan may be investing in your credit card debt.

Rodger:

Doesn't this suggest that the retail numbers later this week will be higher than maybe they should be? Looks like all those in construction who lost their jobs but weren't really on the payroll are spending on borrowed time to keep their lives going until things improve.  Or - It could be that homeowners under pressure are turning to their credit cards to help make ends meet - until "things improve"!

Given the GE post in the credit board, a paranoid person might assume that this was all part of the "conspiracy" to make things look better than they actually are. If the retail investor can't be sucked into the stock market, how will all the professionals exit? :-)

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/08/2007 09:25AM by gmak.

March Retail Sales numbers were out a month ago, and they were up a bunch from February, so these numbers are in line. Of course the Fed's preliminary estimate may be largely based on the retail sales numbers. As I said, consumer credit numbers get revised all over the place, so don't put too much thought into them.

As for the April retail data due on Friday? We can speculate they'll be down if consumers binged in March.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/08/2007 08:46PM by RodgerRafter.