Inflation is hitting agriculture hard. The cost of inputs like seed, fertilizer, and chemicals are rising much faster than core inflation. Because corn is more input intensive, this spring may see fewer acres planted to the crop than soybeans. While stocks fare poorly in inflationary periods, the rush of investment into commodities may not be a cure-all. The correlation of the price of corn to CPI changes is not great, which is why investment analysts advise capping investments in commodities at 3 percent of a portfolio. Duke University’s Campbell Harvey cautions that even gold is not a great hedge against inflation unless viewed over a very long period. In 1974, general inflation jumped to 11.1 percent, and the price of corn r...
Russian Grain Markets: 29 June-3 July 2026 The new marketing season has officially begun in Russia, although bearish sentiment has been concentrated in the southern regions closest to the Black Sea ports, where export demand has been weakest. Delays in grain deliveries to inland elevators have...
What You Need to Know Today: The hot, dry weather forecast continues to drive strength in grain futures with corn and soybeans hitting another day of strong gains. Monday’s Crop Progress and Conditions data were in line with market expectations and showed relatively few concerns for the...
Yesterday we wrote about the Q1 GDP numbers and the June employment reports in an article entitled Real GDP for Q1 Relying on AI Buildout, Held Back by Consumer Spending. That article mentioned that consumer spending had become a drag on GDP. Nonetheless, real GDP in Q1 was revised upward to 2...
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.