Weird FICO Increase

[Aahz]

I'm well aware that the standard answers to posts such as this are "something else happened" and "MyFICO only sends alerts for certain things/the alert trigger is not necessarily the reason for the score change.  But this one has me pretty confused.

5/11/16 - Paid off $2493 balance reports.  Bringing me to 11.2% utility overall, 3 of 16 cards reporting a balance, two cards @ 40% individual utility

 - EQ score bumps up 2 points to 740

5/18/16 - $75 balance reduction reports.  Essentially no change to profile since it's such a small amount.

 - EQ is unchanged (as expected)

5/20/16 - New $5700 balance reports.  Bringing me to 13.4% utility overall, 4 of 16 cards reporting a balance, two cards @ 40% individual utility

 - EQ score bumps UP 7 points to 747

All three reports are identical and both EX and TU dropped slightly, as expected.

AAoA is 4.7 years, AAoaA is 3.6 years.  Oldest accounts (3 student loans) are 17.9 years (hit 18 years on 6/11/16)

The only other change that may have occured is that I had an inquiry on 5/20/15 that turns a year old today, bringing my 12 month EQ inqs down to 4 from 5,  24 month EQ inqs remain at 10, though 2 of those turned 18 months on 5/18/16.  But the 18 month inqs shouldn't effect FICO.

Is a 7 point bump from crossing the 5 to 4 annual inqs something others have experienced?

And, actually, it's more like a 9 to 12 point bump considering the new balance should have cost me points.

I'm totally stumped (and fascinated) by this change, so any thoughts or input are greatly appreciated.

Screenshot of MyFICO Alerts-

ETA Link to larger, easier to read screenshot: http://www.philaahzophy.com/images/WeirdFICO.jpg

[Thomas_Thumb]

I'm confused by your data. It looks like your score changed as follows:

740 => 761 => 757 => 727 => 747

If this is true, my guess is the drop to 727 was due to the higher utilization ($5700 reported balance). This alert shows up again when your score is 747 but, the impact may have already been accounted for. Something else appears to be in play depending on the time of day.

[Aahz]

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@Thomas_Thumb wrote:

I'm confused by your data. It looks like your score changed as follows:

740 => 761 => 757 => 727 => 747

If this is true, my guess is the drop to 727 was due to the higher utilization ($5700 reported balance). This alert shows up again when your score is 747 but, the impact may have already been accounted for. Something else appears to be in play depending on the time of day.

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You're conflating the score changes across all 3 bureaus.

The EQ changes are delineated in the first post 738 > 740 > 747 (starting > $2493 total balance decrease > $5700 total balance increase)

The scores of 761 and 757 are TU changes while the score of 727 is an EX change.

[Thomas_Thumb]

Ok - The copy paste does not identify CRA from what I could tell

As you mention, the inquiry reaching 12 months is a factor. Yes, dropping an inquiry and moving to a lower QTY bin often results in a 5 point step change. However, I think the amount of change is likely scorecard dependent.You can ignore all inquiries in the 12 to 24 month range; they have no influence on any Fico scoring models. [They may come into play on VS 3.0 but, that is a different topic]

Another thing to look at is age of your youngest account(s). Anything of interest there relating to crossing a 1, 2 or 3 month threshold?

[elim]

Normal FICO noise. The best thing to do is nothing.

[Aahz]

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@Thomas_Thumb wrote:

Ok - The copy paste does not identify CRA from what I could tell

As you mention, the inquiry reaching 12 months is a factor. Yes, dropping an inquiry and moving to a lower QTY bin often results in a 5 point step change. However, I think the amount of change is likely scorecard dependent.You can ignore all inquiries in the 12 to 24 month range; they have no influence on any Fico scoring models. [They may come into play on VS 3.0 but, that is a different topic]

Another thing to look at is age of your youngest account(s). Anything of interest there relating to crossing a 1, 2 or 3 month threshold?

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I've opened 6 new cards (all reporting) in the last six months.  The only one to hit a "full number" age-wise in this short period (5/18 to 5/20) hit 3 months on 5/19.  Is that when the "new account penalty" vanishes?

I don't think I've ever read anything about how long the "new account penalty" lasts.  But that would effect all three reports/scores equally would it not?

@elim - I'm not looking for advice on what to do.  I'm not even concerned.  I'm just using this as an example/datapoint to try and help figure out more details on the FICO algo.  I rarely have such a tight window in which to observe score changes and have so much going on that any changes are almost never from a single change. 

[Thomas_Thumb]

There is nothing "official" from Fico on time frame of new accounts. Nonetheless, many believe 3 months (90 days) is important and others suspect 30 days (1 month) might be significant. There may also be a QTY bin associated with youngest accounts such that if you have more than X in the bin score may be impacted. There is a reason statement something like: too many accounts opened recently. This supports a new account QTY threshold for the defined timeframe.

As for all CRAs evaluating all potential scoring factors in Fico 08 exactly the same way - they are not required to and they don't. 

It's really not likely we can pinpont root cause of your minor score changes based on the data presented. Not something to be concerned about but, since you asked I wanted to offer up some possibilities. 

I generally advise ignoring score variations of +/- 10 points as they represent natural variation experienced by most profile monthly due to credit transactions [or noise as Elim mentions]. Personally, I only look at my scores monthly through credit card statements or an infrequent (typically every 4 month) 3B purchase. I don't  participate in a credit monitoring service. 

[RonM21]

Inquiry could have an effect. This may not be too bad of a difference to worry about.

[Revelate]

Always happy to see you post here Aahz!

I wouldn't rule out the inquiry on your credit score being the whole enchilada; Beacon 5 with my crappy file from 2->3 was 7 points and if I had to guess FICO 8 with it's larger focus on recent activity might well have a larger magnitude on inquiry bin changes.  We don't have very good data on inquiry bins sadly, I may see once I get through the current in flight stuff if I can find a pre-qual that does a HP on TU and just rack some up one at a time and see where split points are (since I don't care about that bureau, at all).

I have a bunch of data over time, but I've never seen a seasoning boundary for a tradeline and I explicitly didn't get points on any model when my youngest tradeline turned a year... basically if I cross over an AAOA threshold I change (or maybe oldest account too) but if I don't, then I don't in my experience: I stay flat for extended periods of time unfortunately.