Bloomberg Surveillance · Friday, August 7, 2026
Meredith Whitney highlights that tracking consumer credit card spending, particularly how balances grow at the pace of inflation, serves as a valuable indicator for inflation trends. She notes that credit card spending peaked before gas prices in May, suggesting it can lead the Federal Reserve's own data in predicting inflation.
“What's happened is post financial crisis, the banks pulled back dramatically from near prime and subprime, so they had all sorts of exposure. Wells was a big subprime lender, and so all of that has moved into the shadow banking s. It's maybe companies like that, we're famously subprime, like Capital One has pulled way back and has focused on prime. So instead of revolving balances, people are spending and paying back monthly. Now the balances don't reflect that they grow, but they're growing at the place of inflation. And so what I look at is being a very good guide for where inflation is. Gas prices peaked in like mid early early May. Credit card spending had already peaked in early April, so and you've seen credit card spending deccelerate from that time. And so these are just people spending, absorbing the higher prices and then just spending accordingly. So I think I think the FED should look at their own data. This is data that comes out weekly, so you can see credit card balances and it's really helpful. So I think I think inflation is in a real mirror.”