Traders returned from the holiday weekend with renewed enthusiasm for selling wheat, buying soybeans, and not doing anything with corn. The livestock complex is higher with lean hog futures leading the way on strong buying activity. Live cattle futures were slightly higher as traders waited for cash market developments. It’s Turnaround Tuesday in markets outside CBOT/CME ag commodities. The Dow and S&P 500 indexes are now in the red after early day gains. The S&P 500 hit a new high today at 2,807 before heading south. The CBOE VIX index is above 11 percent for the first time this year, last quoted at 11.88. Crude oil futures are lower with WTI down $0.44/barrel and Brent off $0.95/barrel. COMEX gold is returning to its...
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.