The Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) met last week making no changes to monetary policy but revised its economic projections outlook. The FOMC kept the federal funds rate at 0.25 percent and will do so until labor market conditions improve, and inflation is on track to exceed 2 percent over a longer term. The post-meeting statement also indicated that the Fed will continue its asset purchases, increasing Treasury securities by $80 billion per month and mortgage backed securities by $40 billion per month until labor and inflation conditions stabilize. The purchases are intended to support credit to both businesses and households. The FOMC also noted that “indicators of economic activity and employment have...
What You Need to Know Today: President Trump claimed the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran was over, as both sides accused one another of violating the terms of the agreement. Commercial vessels are increasingly steering clear of the Strait of Hormuz as security risks escalate following Iran...
Key Takeaways: The CME Group is launching new 90 percent Lean Beef and 50 percent Lean Beef futures and options contracts in July. There are five key factors that must be present in physical markets and futures contract specifications for futures contracts to become successful. The two l...
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.