Regional News Europe’s weather is trending pleasantly warmer after a cool start to the growing season. Temperatures will be above normal for most of western and central Europe this week with rainfall limited to Spain, Italy, and parts of southeast Europe. The weather trend is a welcome development that will spur crop growth after a period of cool, rainy weather. The improved weather forecast is boosting expectations of 2021 European wheat and rapeseed yields. Ukraine’s grain association (UGA) and China’s association of small and medium-sized enterprises (CASME) signed a memorandum on strategic bi-lateral cooperation that is likely to boost Ukraine’s ag exports to China. According to the UGA president, t...
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...
Dry bulk markets were volatile but ultimately steady this week with notable differences in rate developments across vessel classes. The Capesize sector, which led the recent rally in freight rates with its dramatic surge, pulled back slightly amid more cautious chartering activity, partic...
Key Market Insights Macro markets delivered a full whipsaw today. Early in the session, crude oil had rallied back above $100/barrel as traders priced renewed concern over the U.S.-Iran standoff and potential supply risk through the Strait of Hormuz. That strength helped pull grains off their o...
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.