There were really no surprises in this week’s CFTC report, which was delayed one day due to the national day of mourning for President Carter, as funds’ activity matched up with expectations and general market direction. Note that the data, which captures funds’ positions through Tuesday, 7 January, does not reflect the bullish buying spree that has followed the January WASDE. Consequently, the managed money industry and traders in general are certainly more bullish than the numbers here reflect. Funds bought nearly 20,000 futures-only contracts of corn last week and expanded their net long by nearly 9 percent. That matched expectations and put funds long by nearly 250,000 contracts, which ...
What You Need to Know Today: Tensions in the Middle East escalated over the weekend with Iran demanding the U.S. make multiple concessions that are likely non-starters before traffic can flow through the Strait of Hormuz again. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey signed a mutual defense agreeme...
Senator John Boozman (R-Arkansas) has urged farmers to apply pressure on the failed farm bill during the August recess. His intent is to hold another vote on the legislation as soon as possible upon the Senate’s return from a five-week break on 14 September. From a parliamentary perspecti...
From WPI Consulting
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.