> Credit card delinquency rates, which are seen as a precursor to write-offs, peaked in July, according to data from Moody’s, but have only fallen slightly and remain nearly a percentage point higher than they were on average in the year before the pandemic.
This is a prime example of a style of reporting that really grinds my gears.
The citation is clearly to another internet source, so a link should be provided. If it truly cannot be linked because it is private, more context is still needed to understand what this data means.
I actually can’t find the source myself, but I can find “Delinquency Rate on Credit Card Loans, All Commercial Banks” from the Federal Reserve. [1]
The percents from that source somewhat match those referenced in the FT quote. “Peaked in July”
- 2024Q1 3.15%
- 2024Q2 3.24%
- 2024Q3 3.23%
Using 2019 as “the year before the pandemic”, the average was 2.5825. Is +0.6475 “nearly a percentage point”? I guess it technically would round up.
Seemingly important context that the quote doesn’t give is that 3.23% is lower than any time 1991Q3 to 2011Q4. But, maybe the trend matters more for this metric.
Here is another FRED chart that may be instructive, although I am not clear on the difference between "delinquency rate" and "balances past due" ("accounts past due" is different still)
Generally delinquent increase of any percentage is a big red flag as these accounts are statistically very unlikely to make a correction and are a bellwether for greater issues like sustainable future consumer trends. They also betray the real unemployment rate including the us "jobless" hand wavery.
Not following. Did you click the link? FRED has "30 or More Days Past Due", "60 or More Days Past Due" and "90 or More Days Past Due." None of them align with delinquency rate
Thanks! I feel like this is actually the next reporting step that the source article needed to do. The original data source citation is helpful of course too.
But my feel is the FT author is trying to avoid just listing the numbers, so tries to cleverly explain them and unintentionally creates a meaningless statement. Instead, they should exercise a tiny bit of analysis and tell us on a relative basis the metric has changed since the premise is that it’s changed a lot, how does “higher level” even compare to what the readers can relate to or comparing to another time they where high or the previous record holder. In any case, if I read it’s 25% higher than 2019 I immediately can see how that would be concerning and drastic change and makes me want to read more.
The cynical part of me thinks it’s possibly just a way to increase word count and write with less numbers. But this is one of those cases when the author should use the data to create information for their audience to consume instead of describing the raw data (raw data nearly never needs description, if you’re tempted to do that, just cite/recite it directly). In short, information > raw data > convoluted descriptions of raw data.
This is likely a rewrite of something else by the human equivalent of an LLM. I wouldn’t ascribe much motive to it except “boss said I need to get out 20 of these out by 11 PM”
Why did you skip over the meat of the article in the second paragraph (and a graph) to complain about something in the 14th?
Credit card lenders wrote off $46bn in seriously delinquent loan balances in the first nine months of 2024, up 50 per cent from the same period in the year prior and the highest level in 14 years, according to industry data collated by BankRegData.
> The citation is clearly to another internet source
How is "data from Moody's" (likely internal, unreleased, or subscriber-only) clearly an internet source?
Do you think the reporter at FT accessed this information on a paper report which was mailed to them?
If not, then it is on the internet somewhere. Whether it is on the “public” or “free” internet is different. If it is not freely available, then they could still give a real citation, so someone else with access to Moody’s private data could find it.
“data from Moody’s” with no qualifier indicates the reader should be able to reasonably find the information themselves (which they can’t in this case)
The general public expects to be able to find all of Moody's analysis and data? No. The "from Moody's" is the part that indicates this data is likely proprietary and inaccessible, as opposed to a government or university source like the Fed, or U.Mich consumer surveys.
Journalists (good ones) have sources. Perhaps he was provided the delinquency information via a phone call, or text, or at an invite-only presentation. It might be something Moody's will release publicly tomorrow, or next week/month, but this reporter got an early preview. There's a million reasons it wouldn't necessarily be on the internet right now.
A lot of this data is quite hard to find if you don't have access to a data provider like Bloomberg (and costs money to quote) so I can understand why they don't bother, even though they should obviously.
FT doesnt owe you a citation, or any explanation. It's a subscription newspaper, not a public resource. Just because someone linked to it on HN doesn't change that. If you feel that FT's reporting is insufficient, or unreliable, or lacks context, then go exercise a very simple remedy... don't read it. All your comments read as if FT owes you something, despite you not being the paper's target audience (or a paid subscriber).
Not your mate but the OP already posted links to Fred which is where it’s public. I am sure moodys used some internal data but Fred delinquency and late rates should get pretty darn close. This data (credit card related) is not unique but I can see it’s not entirely obvious for folks like yourself that are not familiar with it. ;)
The OP in this thread already posted the FRED link hence why I did not post anything and replied to someone who clearly did not see the links to the public data. Here is a follow up though that gets you closer
It kind of used to be. There was a level of responsibility despite the organizations being for-profit. But I just cannot pretend this is sufficiently true anymore.
By for-profit do you mean ad supported or something?
I don’t really see any reason why journalism shouldn’t be for-profit. For example, a business model of producing informative articles and then selling access to those articles could be completely ethical, and a reasonable way to do journalism.
Ad supported media is just a toxic business model though.
Hasn't ad supported media been the model for like 100 years or longer? The retail cost of print newspapers was to cover the cost of delivery and pay the retailers.
People who have issues with it, just don't get Broadcast (one to all) messaging has always been controlled by the ruling classes.
Freedom of Speech can be given to everyone very generously, if Broadcasting (distribution) is controlled.
During the hey days of newspapers without Postal subsidies/Railway subsidies and paper mill subsidies it was very expensive for publishers to ship tons of paper across the country everyday. Even today world wide lot of Govts run the Post Office and Railways. And they subsidize rates for newspapers and magazines. Good luck getting that subsidy if you piss off the wrong people.
Same story repeats with licenses for radio/tv/satellite spectrum. Today its just Ads or control of the content factory (see who owns all the loss making news orgs in the land - Corporations). Ad supported just means who ever can bid most for the ad. And the Elites can outbid the plebs every day of the week.
Stuff like Carreyrou’s investigation on Theranos feels like journalism. Where the objective is the truth, not ad impressions.
I think both goals can sometimes find harmony and the revenue can support the journalistic endeavour. But that feels less and less true. A lot of for-profit media is optimizing heavily towards clicks, often at the very clear expense of the story. Such as not linking citations because thou shalt not guide eyeballs away from the website.
I feel that journalism has immense social value (I’d call it an absolute necessity) and ideally it is funded publicly and uses the academic tenure style approach.
I think you have a biased belief in the history of journalism. The news now is not in any way more optimized for selling content than the past commercial media.
And the history of state run media is not particularly aligned with the idea that “the truth” was the goal.
And Carreyou worked for the Wall Street Journal and, as I recall, left because he wasn't allowed to be paid for speaking. Public funding has its own set of conflicts; look at any history of public television/radio funding.
This is a prime example of a style of reporting that really grinds my gears.
The citation is clearly to another internet source, so a link should be provided. If it truly cannot be linked because it is private, more context is still needed to understand what this data means.
I actually can’t find the source myself, but I can find “Delinquency Rate on Credit Card Loans, All Commercial Banks” from the Federal Reserve. [1]
The percents from that source somewhat match those referenced in the FT quote. “Peaked in July”
- 2024Q1 3.15%
- 2024Q2 3.24%
- 2024Q3 3.23%
Using 2019 as “the year before the pandemic”, the average was 2.5825. Is +0.6475 “nearly a percentage point”? I guess it technically would round up.
Seemingly important context that the quote doesn’t give is that 3.23% is lower than any time 1991Q3 to 2011Q4. But, maybe the trend matters more for this metric.
[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DRCCLACBS