The first half of 2017 was mostly neutral for commodities except for a second-quarter rally for livestock and a decidedly bearish trend for energy. By the end of the year, energy commodities, precious metals and industrial metals were up 16 percent, 12 percent and 32 percent, respectively, while agricultural crops were down 4 percent on the year. Although crude oil prices have not returned to their 2011-2014 levels, they did rise in 2017 for the second straight year. Much of this was driven by the production cutback coordinated by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) late in 2016, which was executed in 2017 and extends through 2018. In addition, global demand increased in 2017 and is expected to rise again this year...
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.