World Perspectives

Biden Trade Policy; Solution for Africa; “Natural” Chemicals

Biden Trade Policy Some of Washington’s top trade policy wonks opined last week on what they think should be the policy approach of President-Elect Joe Biden. Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics yearns for trade policy to return to low visibility. He conceded that in the past, the adjustment costs to free trade were largely ignored, whereas under Trump that erroneously became the sole focus. Dartmouth University economist Doug Irwin characterized Trump trade policy as instinct and reactions that lacked an underlying and thoughtful strategy. He argues for a constructive approach that aligns objectives with the proper policy instruments.  Claude Barfield of the American Enterprise Institute notes the c...

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Beef packer margins reversed sharply lower last week, swinging back into negative territory after six straight weeks of positive returns. Margins fell $145/head to –$75 as fed cattle prices rebounded $7/cwt (live basis), while the Choice cutout slipped nearly $7/cwt. The rapid compression...

FOB Prices and Freight Rates App (Updated 17 December)

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Each year, the Chinese zodiac calendar features one animal to mark and typify the coming 365 days. If that process were applied to CBOT trade, Tuesday would have been the “day of the bear”, with all major grain markets ending in the red. The only specific trigger was the bearish NOP...

livestock

Livestock Industry Margins

Beef packer margins reversed sharply lower last week, swinging back into negative territory after six straight weeks of positive returns. Margins fell $145/head to –$75 as fed cattle prices rebounded $7/cwt (live basis), while the Choice cutout slipped nearly $7/cwt. The rapid compression...

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softs

Bearish Sugar Prices to Continue Despite Production Increases

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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.

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