Sept Debt (11/12/04)

FULL STORY:

The roller coaster trend in revolving credit resumed in September as revolving credit soared at an annual rate of 10% after declining more than 3% in August. During September, consumers piled on more than $6 billion in revolving credit, mostly credit card debt. One-year ago, consumers added $1.6 billion in revolving credit during September. According to figures released Friday by the Federal Reserve, at the end of September 2004 Americans owed $748.3 billion in revolving credit, compared to $742.1 billion for August. One-year ago revolving credit stood at $730.7 billion. Bank credit card debt (excluding store and gas credit cards) at the end of the second quarter was $672.1 billion, or roughly 90% of total revolving credit, according to CardData (www.carddata.com). At the end of September, Americans were $2053.3 billion in debt, excluding home mortgages.

                 REVOLVING CREDIT HISTORICAL ($billions)
           Sep 04   Aug 04   Jul 04  Jun 04   May 04   Apr 04   Mar 04
 GRWTH:     10.0%   -3.3      8.9     -0.1     -1.0     -5.3     5.5
 $OWED:    $748.3   742.1    744.2   738.7    738.6    740.9     744.2

           Feb 04   Jan 04   Dec 03   Nov 03   Oct 03   Sep 03   Aug 03
 GRWTH:     -0.6%   13.0      3.3      4.9      4.1      6.8      3.4
    $OWED:     $750.4   753.0    734.1    743.8    740.5    730.7    729.1
         Source: Federal Reserve; revised figures as of 11/05/04;
     For complete historical data visit CardData (www.carddata.com)