Exchange rates and the commodity trade are inextricably mixed. Multiple recent developments are forcing board room recalculations as to where forex is going, and how best to position amidst the chaos. Just yesterday a populist Argentine Congressman named Javier Milei took the largest share (30.5 percent) is the presidential primary. He has vowed to dollarize his country’s hyper-inflated economy. An approach that was quasi-tried in the 1990’s and fared no better than El Salvador declaring bitcoin legal tender. Early this summer, the dollar index hit its highest point since 2002 but now looks to be stabilizing as inflation falls and the Fed takes a pause. However, that stability is against allied currencies and ignor...
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.