The Federal Reserve Board reported that consumer credit increased at a 1.5% annual growth rate, which is a decrease from the 3.6% rate set the previous month. This resulted in a monthly increase of $6.3 billion in March and follows an upwardly revised $15 billion gain in February and $18.4 billion increase in January. In the first quarter, credit grew at a rate of 3.2%, exceeding the 2.4% rate recorded in the last quarter of 2023. In March, credit-card borrowing saw a slight increase of (+0.1%) after significant gains of (+9.7%) in February and (+7.3%) in January. This marks the slowest pace of growth since April 2021. Conversely, nonrevolving loans, primarily consisting of student and auto loans, rose by (+2.0%) following a (+1.4%) gain in February.

The US Energy Information Administration reported that US commercial crude oil inventories decreased by 1.4M barrels to 459.5M barrels (3% below the five-year average) for the week ending May 3rd, reversing a 7.3M barrels jump the previous week. Gasoline inventories increased by 0.9M barrels (2% below the five-year average). Distillate inventories increased by 0.6M barrels (7% below the five-year average). Total commercial petroleum inventories dropped by 2.1M barrels. Refineries operated at 88.5% of their operable capacity. Crude oil imports came in at 7.0M bpd, a decrease of 198K bpd as compared to the previous week. Total motor gasoline imports averaged 719K bpd, and distillate fuel imports averaged 111K bpd.

The Labor Department reported initial jobless claims increased 22,000 to 231,000 for the week ending May 4th. The four-week moving average was 215,000, an increase of 4,750 from the previous week’s upwardly revised average. Of the 53 states and U.S. territories that report jobless claims, 39 reported increases and 24 reported declines. For the week ending April 27th, the insured unemployment rate was unchanged at 1.2%. The total number of unemployment claims reported in at 1.747M down 5,522 from the previous week. For the week ending April 20th, 1.778M people were receiving jobless benefits through state or federal programs, a decrease of 59,066 from the previous week. There were some 1.715M weekly claims filed for the comparable week in 2023.