Some fascinating figures released by the Federal Reserve yesterday show that Americans are investing more via long-term debt, but they're getting more frugal about short-term debt. Credit-card balances for the month of February posted their largest percentage decline since April 2011, dropping at a rate of nearly 5 percent. That marked the third decline for the measure in the past four months.
Meanwhile, the total of outstanding consumer credit, which means Americans’ total debt aside from mortgages, grew in February, Total debt balances increased by a seasonally adjusted $15.52 billion to $3.34 trillion in February. That's an annualized gain of 5.6 percent.
But the gain in outstanding credit was almost entirely due to car loans and education debt. Nonrevolving credit, which is mostly those two categories, grew at a 9.44 percent annualized rate in February - the largest monthly increase in two years.
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