Friday’s CFTC report featured the expected trends in managed money funds’ activity, but the volume of trade and the degree of change in their position was below expectations. Funds covered about 21,000 contracts of their soybean futures short last week (12.5 percent of the prior week’s position), which was less than expected given the rally in the market these past two weeks. Funds’ activity in the corn market was similar...
August 2026 milk production, the four-class pricing system, and the 2025 Federal Milk Marketing Order reforms Key Takeaways: U.S. milk production is growing because the herd is larger, not because cows are producing more milk. August output increased 1.7 percent, even as production per cow dec...
Markets are getting a quarter-end reality check as September comes to a close. Growth, inflation and interest rates remain central to the macro outlook, while tight diesel supplies keep pressure on the cost of moving goods. States are stepping in with relief, but policy changes alone cannot reb...
Key Takeaways: Russia recently said it would convert existing export terminals in the Baltic and Arctic Seas to handle grain as the Black and Azov Seas remain closed to maritime trade. Futures markets reacted negatively to this news, but does the conversion matter to short-term and long-...
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.