Russian Grain Markets: 28 March-1 April 2022 Last week the domestic market went bearish. Prices for staple grains plummeted to relatively traditional levels after recent historic highs. Bearish trends effected all types of wheat and peas. While barley and corn remained quite volatile, the trend was bearish already, or on its way to being bearish. There are several factors involved. One, the global bearish trends and official strengthening of the Russian ruble and, last but not the least, the increased export duty. The only way for Russia to strengthen their local currency is to rewrite natural gas supply contracts with the EU so that the latter would start paying in rubles thus forcing them to buy rubles. This is still questionable, but w...
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...
Dry bulk markets were volatile but ultimately steady this week with notable differences in rate developments across vessel classes. The Capesize sector, which led the recent rally in freight rates with its dramatic surge, pulled back slightly amid more cautious chartering activity, partic...
Key Market Insights Macro markets delivered a full whipsaw today. Early in the session, crude oil had rallied back above $100/barrel as traders priced renewed concern over the U.S.-Iran standoff and potential supply risk through the Strait of Hormuz. That strength helped pull grains off their o...
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.