A few weeks ago, my travels stopped at a country store where they catered to the farming community and there were many clothing items with the green and the words John Deere. As John Deere goes so does the farming community. It is good to see Deere & Co boosted its sale outlook for fiscal 2018. In an article by Rajesh Kumar Singh of Reuters, Deere has been battling weak demand in the global marketplace for 4 years but now expects 2018 to be better. The company is expecting sales to up 29% including operations from Germany’s Wirtgen Group.

Equipment sales rose 27% to $5.97  billion in the first quarter. The figure should have been over $6 billion but there was supply chain and logistics delays in shipping products. Sometimes those are a good thing to have. The US is where the bulk of sales happen are expected to grow at 10%.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, even though most of us live in urban areas it is good news when the agri business stocks are expected to grow because their machines help feed us. If the farm community is doing better, than it is good news. In all industries there tends to be a market leader and seeing what they are doing helps you to do further analysis of whether you should invest or find different alternatives.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.