After five consecutive months of debt cutting, Americans have started piling on revolving credit at a pretty good clip. During July, consumers added $5.6 billion to revolving credit, mostly credit card debt, compared to less than $1.0 billion one-year ago. At an annualized rate, consumer revolving credit increased 9.0% during July. According to figures released yesterday by the Federal Reserve, at the end of July 2004 Americans owed $744.1 billion in revolving credit, compared to $726.1 billion for July 2003. 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 July, Americans were $2039.9 billion in debt, excluding home mortgages.
| REVOLVING CREDIT HISTORICAL ($billions) |
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| Jul 04 | Jun 04 | May 04 | Apr 04 | Mar 04 | Feb 04 | Jan04 |
| GRWTH: | 9.0% | -0.2 | -1.0 | -5.3 | -2.1 | -0.6 | 13.0 |
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| $OWED: | $744.1 | 738.5 | 738.60 | 740.9 | 744.2 | 750.4 | 753.0 |
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| Dec 03 | Nov 03 | Oct 03 | Sep03 | Aug 03 | Jul03 | Jun03 |
| GRWTH: | 3.3% | 4.9 | 4.1 | 6.8 | 3.4 | 1.4 | 2.7 |
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| $OWED: | $734.1 | 743.8 | 740.5 | 730.7 | 729.1 | 726.8 | 726.1 |
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| Source: Federal Reserve; revised figures as of 9/08/04; |
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| For complete historical data visit CardData (www.carddata.com) |
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