GOOD MORNING, Report day, negotiations day, weather day. In front of all this, prices moved higher this week as shorts elect to reduce risk. Funds are holding a mixed position in beans, willing to flip either side of even as needed. If talks break-down between the US and China, so will beans. But if the storm takes out production and carry-out travels lower, beans will find support on those pullbacks. As it stands right now, trading ranges have edged higher on friendly inputs including a late start to the Brazil planting season, more business from China in recent weeks, (with US beans very competitive), an important USDA report today, and ongoing trade talks. Of all the elements in the current ral...
What You Need to Know Today: The corn and soybean markets closed slightly higher in low-volume trade. The wheat market was mixed, with HRW continuing its downward trek on improved moisture. As expected, the bearish cattle on feed report drove down cattle prices and pulled hogs down with it. Mi...
Monday, 25 May is a U.S. holiday, and both the markets and our office will be closed. Please note that the next issue of Ag Perspectives will be published on Tuesday, 26 May. The WPI staff wishes everyone a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend...
USDA’s monthly cattle on feed report was released today. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity amounted to 11.6 million head, 102 percent of last year. Source: USDA, WPI Placements were up, but part of that is attributable to persistent drought c...
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.