World Perspectives
livestock

January Cattle Inventory Report Preview

Tomorrow, the USDA will release its January Cattle Inventory Report. Given USDA’s decision to drop the July mid-year report due to budget constraints, tomorrow’s inventory report has been highly anticipated. On Monday of this week, WPI noted the significance of the upcoming report.  The next key insight into the markets will be the January cattle report which will show the size of the breeding herd, the size of the 2024 calf crop, and the number of feeder cattle outside of feedlots, i.e. calves under 500 pounds, non-replacement heifers, and steers over 500 pounds. This will be another important piece of information on the cattle inventory and is not expected to show conflicts with the Cattle on Feed report. Last year’...

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Market Commentary: Demand Builds, Markets Await Confirmation

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livestock

Early 2026 Projections of Cow-Calf Finances

Cow-calf margins hit all-time record highs in 2025 as the industry benefited from the downstream impacts of record-breaking beef demand and the smallest beef cattle herd in decades. As WPI readers will know well, the resulting supply crunch boosted cattle prices across the production landscape...

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livestock

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Iran War Impacts; Trade Agreements

Iran War Impacts Confidence in the economy is often tied to partisan politics, with Democrats seeing green when they control the White House, and Republicans ready to invest when their party is in charge. War always creates uncertainty, but uncertainty does not determine the market. A famous gr...

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From WPI Consulting

Illuminating the value of technical research

On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.

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