The U.S. Census Bureau’s monthly advance retail sales report, released Tuesday, suggests that owning a restaurant is likely to be a sales-boosting endeavor in 2019. Okay, it didn’t really say that, but the report holds some interesting insights for the food and agribusiness industries (as well as restaurants). The first notable point in the report was that April’s total retail sales figure was up 3 percent versus the same period in 2018. The overall robust growth in retail sales suggests the backbone of the U.S. economy, consumer spending, is healthy and should support economic expansion.
One reason consumer spending should remain healthy going forward is that the labor market continues to tighten. The number of job ope...
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...
