Currency Valuation and Trade The Federal Reserve's interest rate decision and the strong U.S. dollar weigh on commodity trading decisions. The TPP and a Provision to Prevent Currency Manipulation There has been a push from certain U.S. sectors to add a provision to the TPP that would prevent signatories from engaging in currency manipulation. Is this a convenient rationale to oppose the agreement or a principled negotiating position? An Appreciating U.S. Dollar in the U.S. Fertilizer Trade The U.S. is a large part of the international fertilizer trade. With more than 40 MMT at an aggregate value exceeding $14 billion moved in and out of the country in 2014, currency fluctuations can and do have a profound impact on this trade sector...
What You Need to Know Today: The U.S. and Iran exchanged strikes, with the U.S. hitting Iranian bridges, energy sites, and military infrastructure. Iran launched a missile into Kuwait that damaged a desalination plant. Crude oil futures surged on heightened Middle East tensions, providing supp...
Congress returned this week from its Fourth of July recess, with another break scheduled for the month of August, to face a busy agenda before adjourning for the August recess. Congress has several priorities, including the National Defense Authorization Act, a potential third reconciliation pa...
There was a time, not so long ago, when you could easily explain U.S. agricultural policy. It was countercyclical and focused on risk management, especially for traditional row crops. There were a few exceptions, like dairy and sugar, which maintained the remnants of supply control. Participati...
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.