Latest / Market Pulse / Moody’s Economic Update: The Economy Beneath the Headlines

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Moody’s Economic Update: The Economy Beneath the Headlines · Market Pulse

• 0:02
  Welcome to the Market Pulse podcast from Equifax,
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  where we break down the latest economic and credit insights to help you navigate
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  today's business landscape.
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  Welcome to Market Pulse,
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  a podcast from Equifax where we explore the latest economic and credit trends
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  and what they mean for lenders and financial institutions.
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  I'm Olivia Voltaggio with Equifax, and I'm thrilled to host today's episode.
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  There's certainly no shortage of economic headlines right now.
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  We're watching interest rates, employment, consumer spending,
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  and the housing market,
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  while overall uncertainty continues to complicate the outlook. But for lenders,
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  the bigger question is, what does all of this mean for consumers, credit demand,
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  and risk?
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  Joining me to help us make sense of the current environment is Justin Begley,
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  an economist with Moody's Analytics. Justin, welcome back to Market Pulse.
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  Thank you. It's good to be here.
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  Great to have you back. Justin, let's start at the 30,000 - foot view.
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  If you had to describe the US economy right now in just a few words,
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  what would you say? And what are the most important forces shaping that outlook?
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  I think I would describe the US economy as just broadly fragmented right now.
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  There are two drivers of growth. On the one side,
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  you have investment in AI and the infrastructure that is needed to
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  support that the adoption of that technology. And then also,
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  you have a fair bit of spending by well-to-do
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  consumers,
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  which in many ways has been powered by stock market gains that have
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  also been linked to AI.
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  So in some ways the two main drivers of growth are
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  interlinked. And then you also kind of have some,
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  some other smaller, but yet important areas that are,
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  that are driving growth as well.
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  So we have this influx of tariff refunds,
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  which in some ways is acting like stimulus for firms that,
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  that paid tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act
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  that was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
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  And now they're getting a lot of those back.
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  And there's also been some other tax cuts on the individual side and the
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  business side that seem to be supporting growth.
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  But that's not without its headwinds though. The economy is facing a number of,
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  of clear headwinds, including the war on Iran,
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  which has raised economic policy uncertainty and geopolitical uncertainty
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  as well as energy prices.
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  And we've actually found in our own research that the increase in energy prices
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  for households has more than fully eaten away the increase in the tax refunds
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  that were higher this year because of the one big,
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  beautiful bills, tax cuts.
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  So you have that increased inflation from the energy price shock,
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  and then also you have tariffs adding to inflation a little bit as well.
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  And it's made the monetary policy outlook a fair bit more uncertain.
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  So we have those two headwinds. And then finally,
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  the labor market is also in a tough spot.
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  There's a kind of a reluctance by firms to hire right now,
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  and that's playing a role in keeping growth relatively tame.
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  But so is the declining labor force participation.
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  We have a real labor force supply problem right now for a number of reasons.But
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  those are some of the main things that I would say characterize the
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  current relatively fragmented US economy.
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  Yes. There's been a lot for the economy to absorb over the past year as you just
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  summarized.
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  What has surprised you most about resilience or lack of resilience in the
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  economy?
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  Well, yeah.
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  I think the US economy has been remarkably resilient over the past few years.
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  If you kind of go back to the beginning of 2025,
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  and especially April 2025, when the president had announced his Liberation Day,
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  tariff announcements where tariffs were going to be the highest we've ever seen
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  most forecasters expected higher,
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  higher inflation and slower growth throughout the year.
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  But consumer price inflation averaged about 2.6% throughout the year,
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  which was lower than the 3% average in 2024.
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  And the economy grew at about its potential rate of 2%.
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  And largely this is all because firms, on the one hand, on the price side,
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  kind of ate a fair bit of the tariff cost,
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  being reluctant to pass those costs down to consumers.
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  And then on the demand side, consumers just continue to spend.
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  And so add that then to the relatively unexpected investment
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  and very huge level of investment into AI infrastructure that has really been a
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  welcome surprise.
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  All those things kind of offset some of the headwinds that have been cutting
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  against growth. So I think that the economy has been resilient.
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  Certainly there's some problems,
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  but I've been very surprised as to how well the economy has done despite all
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  these headwinds.
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  When you look six to 12 months ahead,
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  is what does your baseline outlook look like?
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  Is it relatively optimistic or are the potential downturn risks becoming more
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  significant? I.
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  Don't want to undermine the significance of the downside risk,
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  but I would say that we are relatively optimistic.
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  We expect inflation to cool in the year ahead as the effects of the energy price
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  shocks start to disappear and that the economy grows kind of north of 2%.
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  I will caveat that by saying that this
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  depends on no further escalation in the Middle East conflict.But nonetheless,
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  that's kind of our outlook. We're a bit less sanguine on the labor market.
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  Job growth is expected to be slow for the remainder of the year,
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  and we don't think it will pick up much in 2026 given some of the labor supply
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  issues.
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  We could turn to the labor market now since you have been mentioning it.
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  One of the most important supports for credit consumer performance is
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  employment.
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  And the labor market's been obviously very important to the economic story over
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  the past several years. So what is the labor market telling you right now?
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  Well, not to sound cliche,
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  because this term is probably overused at this point,
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  but we remain in something that looks like a low hire,
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  low fire labor markets.
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  Kind of abstracting from the occasional news headlines.Layoffs have not
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  meaningfully picked up, which is,
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  which is a good thing.But hiring has been very tepid. You know, July,
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  July's jobs report was pretty bad altogether, and not just because there was a,
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  a net payroll decline of 23,000 on the month.
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  The local government shed about 57,000 jobs, which seems to be more like a,
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  like a seasonal factor problem than a real decline in jobs.
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  But if we just kind of exclude government,
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  job growth has averaged about 40,000 over the past three months,
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  which is about half of what it was in the first quarter.Moreover,
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  more than 100,000 jobs that we thought were gained in May and June
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  were revised away in the July report.
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  So hiring remains very tepid. And also,
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  if you kind of just look at the industry detail, it's very segmented. And,
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  healthcare is really kind of in the driver's seat where most other industries
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  are not meaningfully adding jobs right now.
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  The household survey paints an even more pessimistic picture of the labor
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  market. So there's every month,
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  two surveys that get released that get kind of their own look at the labor
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  market.
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  So what I was just talking about was the establishment survey or the payroll
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  survey. The household survey is where we get the unemployment rate.
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  And so while the unemployment rate decreased again in July,
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  falling to 4.1% for the first time since last June that's really the
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  extent of the positive news that the household survey is getting.
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  Both household survey employment and the labor force continue to decline in
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  July.
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  And the labor force is down by nearly 1.4 million since the beginning of the
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  year,
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  which has pushed the participation rate to its lowest point since early 2021.
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  So that's a real problem for businesses that even those that want to try to
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  hire. In fact, this is particularly an issue among small businesses.
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  Even those that want to try to hire, they're not,
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  they can't find the workers right now because there's such a decline in the
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  labor supply.
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  But then you also match that with a relatively weak demand for workers
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  and you also take account of that decrease in the labor supply.
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  It's actually kind of pushed the labor market towards what looks something like
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  an equilibrium,
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  which suggests that growth will be pretty minimal in coming months.
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  Yeah. So when we look beyond the headline unemployment numbers,
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  are there other signs beneath the surface that suggest the labor market's either
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  stronger than weaker or than it.
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  Appears? Yeah. Well, the,
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  the labor market is definitely weaker than the unemployment rates suggest,
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  and the softness in hiring and slowing wage growth is certainly showing that.
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  If you look at employment measured by the household
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  survey,
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  which again is different from the payroll report that typically gets cited,
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  employment has fallen by more than 900,000
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  since January. And that would typically suggest, all else equal,
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  the number of unemployed workers would go up. But over the same period,
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  the number of unemployed workers has actually declined because the labor force
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  has, once again, shrunk by 1.4 million,
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  even while the population of persons eligible to participate
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  in the labor force has expanded by more than one million.
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  So that's a lot of data points,
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  but the gist is that the decline in the labor force is pushing the unemployment
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  rate lower than it would be under normal labor force trends.
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  So then let's connect that directly to credit.
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  How important is the labor market to your outlook for consumer credit
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  performance over the next year?
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  And what would have to happen in employment for you to become significantly more
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  concerned about delinquencies and defaults?
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  The labor market outlook is very important.
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  Despite the problems that we've already discussed with
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  interpreting the unemployment rate,
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  it remains the single most important indicator to watch for household credit
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  performance. In fact,
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  if we just kind of look at a basic correlation coefficient between the total 30
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  plus day delinquency rate across all consumer credit segments
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  and the unemployment rates, it's like 0.9.
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  So they're very closely linked. And so because we,
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  our baseline outlook is that the unemployment rate will remain just about
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  between four, four and a half percent over the next year,
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  we think that delinquencies will also remain pretty stable. But of course,
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  if we see a meaningful increase in the unemployment rates because firms
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  start choosing to lay off workers,
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  or maybe even we get an increase in the labor supply somehow that that
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  is not met with an increase in labor demand and therefore there's more people
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  kind of looking for work but can't find it.
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  But then we're going to see consumer credit performance deteriorate quite a bit.
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  So then let's turn to the consumer since that's where many of our listeners are
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  especially focused. For quite some time,
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  we've talked about the resilience of the American consumer,
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  but that resilience hasn't necessarily been shared equally.
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  How would you characterize the financial health of consumers today?
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  Yeah. There's so much to say here, but I'll,
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  I'll just start by saying in aggregate,
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  so if we just abstract from all the particularities of people's income of
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  demographics of their kind of household finances,
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  I would say that things are looking okay. You know,
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  real disposable income growth is pretty weak because of high inflation,
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  but because we expect inflation to continue to improve in the coming months as
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  the energy price shocks effects disappear.We think that real disposable income
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  growth will start to improve.
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  Wage growth is slowing and advanced slower than inflation in
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  the second quarter, which is not a good sign.
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  But more recent data also kind of suggests when we look at the monthly data
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  that's been coming out more recently,
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  suggests that things have improved somewhat. But again,
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  labor supply and demand are just about at equilibrium.
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  So unless there's a meaningful increase in productivity, which, you know,
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  productivity growth is pretty strong,
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  but we need to see more to really drive wages.
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  We shouldn't expect wage growth to grow sufficient to support a meaningful
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  expansion in consumption. Looking at households though,
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  especially those that own assets like stocks and, and homes, well,
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  they're benefiting from the appreciation in
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  values of those assets over the past several years,
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  and that has powered a lot of spending in the economy. And then finally,
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  just broadly speaking on household balance sheets, again,
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  looking in the aggregates, things look okay.
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  Overall delinquency rates are lower than before the pandemic and you know, just
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  slightly lower and have been pretty stable, actually.
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  Most likely due to the relatively tight lending standards that have
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  been in place over the last few years. And then finally,
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  just looking at household debt service payments,
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  they're very low compared to its history. So altogether,
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  it suggests that consumers are doing okay in aggregate.
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  We've talked on Market Pulse a lot about this idea of a K-shaped economy,
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  and what we refer to as thrivers in our Market Pulse Index report may be doing
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  quite well while other households or strivers are under considerably more
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  pressure. Are you still seeing that divergence? And if so,
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  is the financial divide continuing to widen?
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  We are still seeing that divergence,
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  and the K-shaped economy does remain a problem. You know,
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  when looking at the data in aggregate, again, things don't look so bad, but,
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  you know, as you allude to, there's start,
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  there's some cracks under the surface.
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  And this is pretty clear when looking at the spending data.
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  We actually take data from the Federal Reserve's financial accounts release and,
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  and kind of combine it with the survey of consumer finances and estimate that
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  the top 20% of income earners are responsible for about 60%
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  of total personal outlays. And these consumers especially have,
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  as I mentioned before,
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  benefited from the positive wealth effects resulting from recent stock market
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  and house price gains. And, and of course, if you feel more wealthy, well,
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  then you're going to be more willing to spend.
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  But if we look at growth in personal outlays since the pandemic,
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  so not even just the share of total outlays,
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  but just looking at the growth over the last six or so years,
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  the top 20% has increased their spending by about 60%. ,
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  But the middle 40% and the bottom 40% o- of income earners have
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  increased their spending only by about 30%.
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  And keep in mind that over that period,
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  the CPI has risen by about 26%.
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  So growth and real spending by the bottom 80% of income earners has been pretty
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  anemic. And,
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  and if we look at goods and services that each income quintile spends on spends
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  their earnings on, well,
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  we find that those lower quintiles of income earners have experienced
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  higher relative rates of inflation because of their high propensity to spend on
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  necessities like food and energy and clothing and even housing,
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  which have had some of the higher rates of inflation over the last few years.
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  And if I could just throw one more data point in there,
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  delinquencies for subprime borrowers are at about a decade and a half high.
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  And I submit that subprime borrowers are,
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  I'm going to classify those as those with credit scores
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  below 660.
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  But there's been pretty much some stabilization in the increase in recent
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  months, but the stress that is in that side of the market is pretty concerning.
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  So, I think that you know, credit scores are
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  not necessarily determined by income, but they are correlated.
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  And so that's just another,
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  another data point to suggest that the K-shipped economy really hasn't been
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  getting better.
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  And for lenders,
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  averages can sometimes obscure what's happening underneath the surface.
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  Which consumer segments are you watching most closely right now,
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  and where are you seeing the greatest signs of financial stress?
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  That's a good question. I'm paying attention to a few things.
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  So the first thing I'm keeping a close eye on FHA mortgages.FHA mortgages
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  are not necessarily solely utilized by low and middle income
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  households, but they tend to make up
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  the majority of people who take on those types of loans.We're seeing a lot of
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  stress in that segment.
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  The delinquency rate for FHA mortgages is at about a 15-year high if
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  you ignore kind of the temporary spike during the pandemic. Now,
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  some of this is policy driven, I submit. You know,
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  as of October of 2025,
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  distressed borrowers entertaining a home retention option that,
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  that have an FHA mortgage are now required to make three consecutive trial
• 16:39
  payments before being reclassified to current on their loan. Whereas before,
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  the reclassification would basically happen immediately. But nonetheless,
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  rising FHA mortgage delinquencies signal that there is a fair bit of stress
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  among lower and middle income households that,
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  you know, can't,
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  or at least are falling behind on what is perhaps the most important monthly
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  payment that they have, their,
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  the payment for their home.But I'm also looking at subprime credit stress
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  broadly.But there's two areas where I think we can zero in on.
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  The first is credit cards.
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  So credit card delinquencies are actually pretty stable altogether.And even if
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  you look at, for instance,
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  the delinquency rate on subprime borrowers, even it's high for credit cards,
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  but it is also pretty stable.
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  But I've recently seen some delinquency rates that have been reported by banks
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  that cater more to prime and super prime borrowers,
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  and also those delinquency rates reported by banks that tend to lend to more
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  prime or subprime borrowers, and also those that lend kind of via retail cards.
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  And the spread in the delinquency rates reported by those banks
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  is the highest or largest it's been since 2010.
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  So that's something to keep an eye on.
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  And the second thing there on the subprime credit stress
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  issue is in the auto segment. So auto loan delinquency rates are pretty high,
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  but they're overall, overall pretty stable as well.But for subprime borrowers,
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  they're at an all time high.
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  And many many of these borrowers likely took out loans as interest rates
• 18:16
  were rising just before lending standards began to meaningfully tighten. And,
• 18:21
  and so, you know,
• 18:22
  when we're looking at kind of where the stress is popping up in the auto loan
• 18:25
  segment, it's coming from auto the auto finance segment,
• 18:28
  which not necessarily the general rule,
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  but tends to have a little bit looser standards than the auto bank.
• 18:34
  So that's also something that I've been watching pretty closely.
• 18:37
  And there's other things, you know, you can look at student loans,
• 18:39
  you can look at historically low savings rates,
• 18:41
  but I think those three things are topping my list right now.
• 18:45
  Yes, let's focus a bit on consumers' ability to borrow and their willingness to
• 18:49
  borrow. What are you seeing in terms of overall demand for credit?
• 18:54
  Yeah, I mean, demand for credit is
• 18:58
  pretty interesting right now because altogether, it's relatively low. I mean,
• 19:04
  banks looking at the the senior loan officer opinion survey that comes out from
• 19:09
  the Fed.They're reporting pretty
• 19:13
  low lending I'm sorry, pretty low demand for, for loans.
• 19:18
  And then our own data, if we're looking at growth in originations,
• 19:22
  I would say it's at best okay.And a lot of it's being driven by home equity
• 19:27
  loans and lines of credit, and there's some various reasons for that. But yeah,
• 19:30
  I would say that demand for loans,
• 19:31
  just given the high interest rate environments, it's not that,
• 19:34
  it's not looking that great right now.
• 19:35
  When you break it down by a product, mortgage, auto, credit card,
• 19:39
  personal loans,
• 19:40
  where do you see the biggest opportunities or challenges for lenders over the
• 19:43
  next year?
• 19:44
  Yeah. So, I mean, I think anything high rate and long-term is going to
• 19:49
  be a struggle right now.
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  So mortgages are kind of a case in point.The affordability problem in the new
• 19:55
  and existing home markets is pervasive and keeping demand pretty low altogether.
• 20:01
  And, kind of if you if you look at, for instance,
• 20:06
  the supply of existing homes it's still very tight.The so-called lock-in
• 20:11
  effect where homeowners with low rate loans originated before 2022
• 20:16
  they still just don't want to trade up at the cost of a significantly higher
• 20:21
  interest rate on their loan.So that's,
• 20:25
  that's causing just interest rates to be kind of determinative for, for the,
• 20:28
  for the housing market right now.That said also kind of looking within the
• 20:33
  residential segment, many of these exact same homeowners are starting to draw,
• 20:38
  in fact, they have been for a while now,
• 20:40
  draw on their home equity to expand or renovate renovate their
• 20:46
  home.
• 20:46
  So there is opportunity there.But many consumers are also turning to revolving
• 20:50
  credit to kind of make ends meet,
• 20:52
  particularly lower income households that are the most kind of financially
• 20:57
  strapped. I've looked at origination
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  data recently that suggests kind of actually the subprime despite tight lending
• 21:06
  standards,
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  the subprime segment is actually borrowing at some of the faster ratesofamong
• 21:11
  kind of the credit distribution. Now,
• 21:13
  some of that is kind of payback from just very low lending to that segment over
• 21:17
  the last couple of years, but it is interesting nonetheless.And then I,
• 21:21
  as I mentioned earlier,
• 21:22
  there's a fair bit of stress in the auto loan market and kind of a net majority
• 21:25
  of banks, weirdly though,
• 21:28
  are loosening standards on new and used auto loans,
• 21:31
  and that's according to the senior loan officer opinions survey.
• 21:34
  So that presents a risk, a real risk,
• 21:36
  given how high subprime auto loan delinquencies have gone.
• 21:41
  Do you think there's pent-up credit demand waiting for rates to come down?
• 21:44
  In other words,
• 21:45
  could even a modest improvement in borrowing conditions meaningfully change
• 21:49
  demand, or are affordability constraints bigger than interest rates alone?
• 21:54
  There probably is some pent-up demand, particularly in housing,
• 21:58
  but it's a catch-22 because, of course, if mortgage rates fall, well,
• 22:02
  that might result in more home buying.But then home equity borrowing
• 22:07
  might decline as well because people who have been locked in those homes might
• 22:11
  say, "Well, I don't want to
• 22:15
  keep expanding this home or keep renovating,
• 22:17
  so why don't we just go buy a new house?" So there, there is kind of
• 22:21
  a catch 22 there.
• 22:23
  Consumers are probably less rate sensitive for something like credit cards.
• 22:28
  And so you know, I doubt there's a lot of pent-up demand there,
• 22:31
  but there is solid evidence to suggest that an increase in rates has
• 22:36
  persistently negative impacts on borrowing. So a decline would likely show,
• 22:40
  I think, the opposite effect. But at the same time,
• 22:44
  affordability constraints, I think,
• 22:47
  remain sufficient to limit growth in borrowing, even if rates fall.
• 22:52
  Prices are just still very high. And,
• 22:54
  a decline in rates would only further spur demand,
• 22:57
  which would potentially cause prices to go higher,
• 23:01
  which would limit how much borrowing might increase.
• 23:04
  Yes, as you've mentioned,
• 23:05
  housing is probably one of the clearest examples of that affordability
• 23:09
  challenge.
• 23:09
  Many existing homeowners have relatively low mortgage rates and significant
• 23:13
  equity while prospective buyers are facing both elevated home prices and higher
• 23:17
  financing costs. What ultimately unlocks this market?
• 23:21
  Is it lower mortgage rates, more housing supplies,
• 23:24
  slower home price appreciation, or some combination of all three? A.
• 23:28
  Combination of all three would certainly be helpful.But supply probably is
• 23:33
  the key here.
• 23:34
  We've estimated in our own research that the nation's housing shortage is
• 23:39
  about
• 23:41
  two million.But some estimates actually go as high as eight million.
• 23:45
  So more supply, assuming that demand remains constant, will lower prices,
• 23:50
  and perhaps even enough to make a higher mortgage rate a little bit
• 23:55
  more palatable to buyers. Now, there's been some efforts to do this.
• 23:59
  Congress passed the Road to Housing Act to try to unlock more housing supply
• 24:02
  this year, but even then,
• 24:04
  it's likely only going to support a modest expansion of
• 24:09
  the housing supply, because really, at the end of the day,
• 24:11
  this is a local issue.
• 24:13
  The federal government has trouble touching things like zoning laws that prevent
• 24:16
  greater expansion of the housing supply.
• 24:18
  So we're really going to need to see more progress at the local level.
• 24:21
  But that said, an increase in
• 24:25
  supply also wouldn't come without its own consequences,
• 24:27
  at least to current homeowners. You know,
• 24:29
  if there's a sufficient increase in supply that drives down prices, well,
• 24:33
  you unlock housing affordability for potential home buyers.
• 24:37
  But that will deteriorate the wealth of homeowners.
• 24:42
  So given that positive wealth effects have been such a key driver of
• 24:47
  consumption over the last few years,
• 24:49
  as those wealth effects from an increase in supply turn negative on the housing
• 24:53
  side, that actually could spur a, you know, a potential problem for consumption.
• 24:58
  And so this is economics. There's always trade-offs to, to economic policy,
• 25:02
  but these are things that I think should be considered.
• 25:05
  What should mortgage lenders realistically expect over the next year in terms of
• 25:09
  purchase activity and refinancing?
• 25:12
  Well, because mortgage rates will remain high in our view,
• 25:17
  refinancing will probably be minimal,
• 25:20
  at least keep to the status quo.High rates and affordability concerns will also
• 25:25
  keep purchase activity pretty sticky. And
• 25:29
  I don't think we're going to get a meaningful increase in
• 25:34
  the housing supply either. And so, altogether,
• 25:37
  we probably stick to the status quo on that as well. Now, new home building,
• 25:41
  too, because the solution for a while,
• 25:45
  as existing homes as the existing home supply kind of dried
• 25:50
  up and, and now existing home sales are near all-time lows the solution was,
• 25:55
  of course, to expand supply. Let's get new homes on the market.
• 25:58
  Let's get more people attracted to new homes. Well,
• 26:01
  now even new home building is being weighed down by weaker builder confidence
• 26:06
  and high costs associated with terrace on lumber and steel
• 26:12
  and aluminum and things that are necessary to construct a home. And then also,
• 26:16
  some of the immigration policies have resulted in labor constraints in the
• 26:19
  construction industry. And so, weaker building is also going to keep,
• 26:23
  on the new home side, sales from growing meaningfully over the next year.
• 26:28
  So I want to start to wrap up by bringing everything we've discussed together
• 26:31
  for our lending audience.
• 26:32
  We have an economy that at the aggregate level may look relatively healthy,
• 26:36
  but underneath those headline numbers,
• 26:38
  there can be very different experiences across consumers.
• 26:41
  If you're a lender making decisions about growth and risk today,
• 26:44
  what economic indicators would you be paying the closest attention to?
• 26:49
  Yeah. Well,
• 26:49
  I think it is important to look at the traditional indicators,
• 26:54
  look at the unemployment rate, look at job growth,
• 26:57
  look at the underlying components of GDP. You know,
• 26:59
  we can discuss some of the issues with interpreting some of those things,
• 27:02
  but they're still important.But as you say, looks can be deceiving and,
• 27:07
  or at the very least, not always tell the full story. So if I'm a lender,
• 27:12
  I want to look at, at the underlying drivers.
• 27:17
  For example is there a demographic that's driving the labor force decline,
• 27:21
  such as retirees?
• 27:22
  Or is there an industry that's responsible for much of the recent increase in
• 27:27
  jobs, like healthcare, for instance? What's driving GDP growth?
• 27:31
  Are all consumers helping to grow the economy or just the well to do?
• 27:34
  Is private fixed investment rising broadly or is it primarily being driven by
• 27:39
  AI? So those are just some of the details that I would want,
• 27:41
  I would want to know if I'm a lender.
• 27:43
  And how should lenders think about balancing those two objectives right now,
• 27:47
  managing risk without becoming so cautious that they miss credit-worthy
• 27:50
  consumers and opportunities for growth?
• 27:52
  Yeah, that. It's a tough question because every lender is so different.
• 27:56
  They cater to different regions, different populations, different demographics.
• 28:00
  Each lender needs to assess their loan portfolios and their underlying nuances
• 28:05
  and, and their own risk appetites. Broadly speaking though,
• 28:08
  I would just say that,
• 28:11
  that lenders need to identify where the stress is and then price accordingly.
• 28:15
  Yeah, stress test your portfolios under various economic scenarios to
• 28:20
  identify potential exposure. And, and then also,
• 28:22
  just as we've talked a little bit about today recognize that just the,
• 28:26
  the amount of stress that's building in the subprime segment.And, and, and,
• 28:31
  and I think it's reasonable to say that there's good reason to be
• 28:36
  weary there. So just look for stress and then price accordingly.
• 28:40
  I think that's kind of the main advice.
• 28:42
  Well Justin, as always,
• 28:43
  thank you for helping us make sense of what's happening in the economy,
• 28:46
  and more importantly, what it means for lenders and consumers.
• 28:49
  Thank you so much.
• 28:49
  Yeah, happy to be here again. Thanks for having me.
• 28:52
  And thanks to everyone for listening to Market Pulse.
• 28:54
  To hear more conversations about the economic and credit trends affecting your
• 28:58
  business, subscribe to Market Pulse wherever you listen to podcasts.
• 29:02
  I'm Olivia Voltaggio with Equifax. Thanks for listening,
• 29:05
  and we'll see you next time.
• 29:07
  The information and opinions provided in this podcast are intended as general
• 29:11
  guidance only and are subject to change without notice.
• 29:15
  The views presented during the podcast are those of the presenter as of the date
• 29:18
  this podcast was recorded and do not necessarily reflect official positions of
• 29:23
  Equifax.
• 29:25
  Investor analysts should direct inquiries using the contact us box on the
• 29:28
  investor relations section at equifax.com.