This kind of data needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Still, it is noteworthy. Citi with the note.
Citi’s CC data for the 16 sub-sectors we track show that total spending in March wk 3 (ended 3/18/23) decreased 10.3%, a big deceleration vs March wk 2 (-6.8%), and driven by a HSD decline in transactions. Ex-Food spendingdecreased 13.0% vs -8.1% in March wk 2. This was the first week of data following the disruption within the financial sector, and we were curious if it might have had an impact on the consumer. It sure did. March wk 3 was the biggest decline in total retail spending we have seen since the pandemic began (April 2020). March is off to a much slower pace than Feb (-8.3% MTD vs Feb -6.0%). We saw broad based deceleration across sectors with only one sector (Jewelry) accelerating.
Citi’s Proprietary CC Data for 16-subsectors: Citi is the world’s largest credit card issuer, and our Retail Research Team in conjunction w/Citi’s Research Innovation Lab colleagues, look at high level credit card data at a sub-sector level, which we believe is helpful in assessing overall spending trends to help build an investment mosaic.
