The U.S. Census Bureau’s monthly advance retail sales report, released last week, shows growth in restaurant and grocery store sales is slowing. The first notable point in the report was that total retail sales were up 3.16 percent in May versus the same period in 2018. Their overall robust growth suggests the backbone of the U.S. economy, consumer spending, is healthy and should support economic expansion.
More germane to agriculture, sales for grocery stores and food service establishments (“bars and restaurants” in non-government statistical language) were down 0.1 percent and up 0.71 percent, respectively, from April. More telling, however, are the improvements over last May’s figures with grocery store sales...
What You Need to Know Today: Commodities were mostly lower across the board today after yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a potential interest rate hike later in 2026. The dollar index reached its highest level in over a year, and a strong dollar makes U.S. agricultural expor...
Tomorrow is the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the USDA, along with the rest of the federal government and the CME, will be closed, so the monthly Cattle on Feed report was released a day early. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity on 1 June amounted...
