World Perspectives
softs

Cocoa: Will the Challenges of 2023 Continue into 2024?

Recently, WPI has received requests from a few clients to provide some analysis on the cocoa market.   Clearly, there is a reason for this request as cocoa prices have been exceptionally volatile and futures more than doubled over the nine months from August 2023 through April 2024. In this article, we first explore the basics of cocoa production (which we thought valuable given the infrequency with which we discuss the crop) and subsequently move into an analysis of what drove the recent price rally and the outlook for the 2024/25 crop.  Since this is a topic we cover infrequently, we’d appreciate your thoughts, especially if you want to see more (or less) information about cocoa and the other “softs” comm...

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energy

Iran War Hits Fertilizer Supply and Disrupts SMP Trade

Today the war in Iran has hit its 10th day. Iranian forces have sustained their retaliatory strikes on US military assets and other key infrastructure in Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. The latest Iranian attacks on Bahrain have damaged a water desalination plant. Further, more than a...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

CFTC COT Report Analysis

Friday’s CFTC report showed funds further expanding long positions across the major ag futures contracts for the seventh straight week. Funds added 125,000 contracts (27 percent) to their all-ags net long position, with buying in soybeans and corn primarily responsible for the move. ...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Middle East Grain Trade Trends

Somewhat lost in the current discussion over the impacts of the conflict in Iran and the Persian Gulf is the impact on grain trade. The region is not usually at the top of grain market analysts’ thinking when it comes to major demand centers, yet it accounts for significant global grain c...

energy

Iran War Hits Fertilizer Supply and Disrupts SMP Trade

Today the war in Iran has hit its 10th day. Iranian forces have sustained their retaliatory strikes on US military assets and other key infrastructure in Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. The latest Iranian attacks on Bahrain have damaged a water desalination plant. Further, more than a...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

CFTC COT Report Analysis

Friday’s CFTC report showed funds further expanding long positions across the major ag futures contracts for the seventh straight week. Funds added 125,000 contracts (27 percent) to their all-ags net long position, with buying in soybeans and corn primarily responsible for the move. ...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Middle East Grain Trade Trends

Somewhat lost in the current discussion over the impacts of the conflict in Iran and the Persian Gulf is the impact on grain trade. The region is not usually at the top of grain market analysts’ thinking when it comes to major demand centers, yet it accounts for significant global grain c...

energy

Transportation and Export Report - 5 March

As you might guess, it is all about the conflict in the Middle East this week when discussing anything connected to energy or freight markets. Rate estimates, fuel costs, and insurance premiums (if available) have all skyrocketed since the U.S. attacked Iran and Iran attacked 15 of its neighbor...

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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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