World Perspectives
feed-grains wheat

After the Virus, Clouds of Locusts

So far 2020 has been difficult, to put it mildly. It started out on a high note with an apparent truce between the U.S. and China when the Phase One trade agreement was signed in mid-January.  But it has been downhill from there. The big issue, of course, is the global coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19 has sickened more than eight million people representing every populated continent with the number of deaths nearing 450,000. The economic fallout from the global efforts to limit spread of the virus has been and will continue to be severe. In aggregate the world economy has taken a bigger hit than it did during the Great Recession of 2009/10. Only now are governments taking cautious steps to reopen their economies, and plenty of questions...

Related Articles
feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Good Weather Trumps Demand

Markets opened today pretty much where they ended in the overnight and pretty much stayed that way all day, which is to say in the red. And it did so pretty much across the board on lower volume. There was just not any real change in the story of impending big U.S. crops arriving on top of big...

livestock

Bullish Cattle Inventory and Cattle on Feed Reports

USDA released two key reports on the cattle market today, the Cattle on Feed report and the July Cattle Inventory report.  The Cattle Inventory report was suspended last year, so this is the first look at the cattle herd since 2023.  The nation’s cattle herd, as of 1 July, is 94...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Dec 25 Corn closed at $4.19/bushel, down $0.0175 from yesterday's close.  Sep 25 Wheat closed at $5.3825/bushel, down $0.0325 from yesterday's close.  Nov 25 Soybeans closed at $10.21/bushel, down $0.0325 from yesterday's close.  Dec 25 Soymeal closed at $281.6/short ton, down $1...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Good Weather Trumps Demand

Markets opened today pretty much where they ended in the overnight and pretty much stayed that way all day, which is to say in the red. And it did so pretty much across the board on lower volume. There was just not any real change in the story of impending big U.S. crops arriving on top of big...

livestock

Bullish Cattle Inventory and Cattle on Feed Reports

USDA released two key reports on the cattle market today, the Cattle on Feed report and the July Cattle Inventory report.  The Cattle Inventory report was suspended last year, so this is the first look at the cattle herd since 2023.  The nation’s cattle herd, as of 1 July, is 94...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Dec 25 Corn closed at $4.19/bushel, down $0.0175 from yesterday's close.  Sep 25 Wheat closed at $5.3825/bushel, down $0.0325 from yesterday's close.  Nov 25 Soybeans closed at $10.21/bushel, down $0.0325 from yesterday's close.  Dec 25 Soymeal closed at $281.6/short ton, down $1...

livestock

Cattle on Feed for July 1, 2025

U.S. Cattle on Feed is down 2 percent annually at 11.1 million head on July 1, 2025.  Placements in June totaled 1.44 million head, 8 percent below 2024. Marketings in June totaled 1.71 million head, 4 percent below 2024.  Other disappearance in June totaled 53,000 head, 7 percent bel...

Image
From WPI Consulting

Communicating importance of value-added products

Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.

Search World Perspectives

Sign In to World Perspectives

Don’t have an account yet? Sign Up