Looking at the latest weekly reading of total commercial and industrial (C&I) loans, it appears that financing for retail, wholesale, industrial and manufacturing firms is fully in decline.In fact, the latest results show that total C&I loans dropped at an annual rate of 11.97%, the largest annual decline in at least the 34 years that loan statistics have been tracked.
Looking at past recessionary period contractions of commercial lending it’s easy to see that C&I lending could continue contracting for many years to come.
What is not as obvious is the effect of this decline which may remove $500 billion (30% decline from peak) in financing from firms over the next few years.
