World Perspectives

Commodity Investing

Goldman Sachs forecasts that its commodity index will earn 6 percent over the coming 12-month period. That may be a welcome prediction, or one brushed off as unserious. After all, those investing in commodities over the past decade have certainly not found them rewarding. But Jason Zweig of the Wall Street Journal noted in a recent article that money can be made in commodities, but only by the most patient of investors.  Zweig cites analysis by SummerHaven Investment Management LLC, which reviewed futures contracts over the past nearly 150 years and found they outperformed cash and inflation by 5.2 percent. That is just behind the average 5.5 percent earned by stocks over the past 118 years. The narrow difference is surprising given t...

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Livestock Round Up: Cattle Margins and Distribution

The recent February World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report forecast beef production to increase in 2026 due to greater slaughter of steers and heifers, increased cow slaughter, and heavier dressed weights, all of which will provide some relief to the beef market. Also, th...

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Summary of Futures

Mar 26 Corn closed at $4.3125/bushel, up $0.0375 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Wheat closed at $5.525/bushel, up $0.1525 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Soybeans closed at $11.3725/bushel, up $0.1325 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Soymeal closed at $307.9/short ton, up $4.9 fr...

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Export Sales

Export Sales and Shipments for January 30-February 5, 2026. Wheat: Net sales of 488,000 metric tons (MT) for 2025/2026 were up 31 percent from the previous week and 14 percent from the prior 4-week average. Export shipments of 580,000 MT were up 44 percent from the previous week and 59 percent...

livestock

Livestock Round Up: Cattle Margins and Distribution

The recent February World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report forecast beef production to increase in 2026 due to greater slaughter of steers and heifers, increased cow slaughter, and heavier dressed weights, all of which will provide some relief to the beef market. Also, th...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Mar 26 Corn closed at $4.3125/bushel, up $0.0375 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Wheat closed at $5.525/bushel, up $0.1525 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Soybeans closed at $11.3725/bushel, up $0.1325 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Soymeal closed at $307.9/short ton, up $4.9 fr...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Export Sales

Export Sales and Shipments for January 30-February 5, 2026. Wheat: Net sales of 488,000 metric tons (MT) for 2025/2026 were up 31 percent from the previous week and 14 percent from the prior 4-week average. Export shipments of 580,000 MT were up 44 percent from the previous week and 59 percent...

A Year in Review: Impact of Tariffs on Agricultural and Food Processing Machinery

We now have nearly a year of data to work with on the impact of the Trump Administration’s tariffs.  When they were first announced, there was quite a bit of conjecture and some sophisticated economic analysis about how trade flows would be impacted. This brief analysis will focus br...

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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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