After September's record surge in total consumer credit, when non-revolving credit soared by $22 billion while credit card jumped by a whopping $6.7 billion, something appears to have snapped in October when according to the Fed, just $16 billion of new credit was created, almost half the prior month, and far below the consensus estimate of a $20 billion increase.
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More concerning is that while the spigot for student and car loans was flowing, and $16 billion in new non-revolving credit was issued...
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... revolving credit ground to a halt with just $178 million in new loans created.
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The dramatic slowdown in new revolving credit, which was the lowest since February of 2015, may explain why holiday spending just suffered its first decline since the recession, as we reported previously [6].
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That said, thanks to the generosity of the government...
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... there is little risk that spending on the two staples that have kept the US credit machine chugging along, namely student and car loans, both of which have just surpassed a total of $1 trillion in notional debt outstanding.
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Indicatively, there is $924 billion in credit card debt.
Finally, before anyone expresses concerns that debt-funded spending on cars ot colleges is about to hit a brick wall, fear not: presenting the full history of total nonrevolving credit in the US: about as exponential as they get.
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