The housing market offers one of the few bright spots in the U.S. economy with homebuilders seeing record-setting sales numbers. The U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released July’s new home sales data this week that bolsters this trend.

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released their July 2020 Advance Monthly Sales for Retail and Food Services report. Adjusted for seasonal variation, July sales totaled $536.0 billion, which represents a 1.2 percent increase over June’s numbers ($529.4 billion). This marks the third consecutive month with increases in U.S. consumer...

On Thursday, the U.S. Census Bureau released their latest data on estimated retail and food services sales for June. Estimated numbers are based on early reports from a small sampling of companies selected from the larger Monthly Retail Trade Survey (MRTS) sample. You can view the Advance Monthly Sales for Retail and Food Services, June...

The U.S. Census Bureau’s May 2020 retail and food service data was released on June 16, and it reveals some impressive gains when comparing May to April of this year. Looking at the seasonally adjusted figures, total U.S. retail and food services sales went from $412.5 billion in April to $485.5 billion in May — a 17.7 percent monthly...

We all remember the ghostly voice from Field of Dreams telling Ray (Kevin Costner), “If you build it, they will come” as he walked through his Iowa cornfield. This same encouraging message applies to your bank’s use of the Vertical IQ tool. If management supports and encourages business bankers to incorporate industry research using...

There’s no doubt about it: Americans LOVE to eat! And we have the restaurants to prove it. There are approximately 364,000 restaurants in the U.S., which include everything from full-service restaurants, to quick-service restaurants (fast food, snack, and non-alcoholic beverage bars), fast-casual restaurants, grills, buffets, and...