BofA Total Card Spending (week to October 17th) +4.9% Y/Y (prev. +5.1%); lower-income spending growth has consistently outpaced higher-income spending growth over the past several weeks

BofA Total Card Spending (week to October 17th) +4.9% Y/Y (prev. +5.1%); lower-income spending growth has consistently outpaced higher-income spending growth over the past several weeks.

Bank-issued card aggregates of this kind sit outside the official data calendar but have become a standard cross-check on the consumption pulse, particularly in stretches where the government retail sales series is stale or distorted by seasonal quirks. The headline growth rate here is marginally softer than the prior week, and decelerations of that size in these series have historically been noise rather than signal; what has tended to matter is sustained multi-week direction, not single prints. The more informative detail is the income split: lower-income spending outrunning higher-income spending inverts the more common late-cycle pattern, in which the lower-income cohort typically rolls over first under the weight of depleted excess savings, higher credit costs, and exhausted pandemic-era buffers. Persistent strength at the lower end has in the past pointed either to real wage gains accruing disproportionately to lower-paid workers in tight labour markets, or to heavier reliance on revolving credit, and the two readings carry very different implications for the consumer credit complex and discretionary retail names. The follow-ons are whether the divergence persists in subsequent weekly prints, whether it shows up in the official retail and personal spending data, and how issuer commentary on card delinquencies lines up with it. As a proprietary single-bank series, coverage and methodology caveats apply, and the read is corroborative rather than decisive.