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...
Key Market Insights The broad market is locked in on this week’s Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, but this is no longer just a trade summit. Increasingly, the meeting is becoming tied directly to Iran, energy security, and the growing global economic fallout from disruptions through the Strai...
