Livestock industry margins were mostly lower last week as rising input costs crimped the profitability outlook. Declines were greatest for feedlot placements, where margins fell over $50/head due to higher feeder cattle costs. Beef packer margins saw the next greatest declines with profits dropping $35/head and hitting their lowest level since WPI started estimating packer margins in 2010. The decline in beef packer margins came amid last week’s $5-8/cwt rally in fed cattle prices that was partly offset by a $5 gain in beef values. The rally in fed cattle prices helped push feedlot closeout margins sharply higher, however, and to near five-year record highs. The pork sector saw packer margins decrease slightly on weaker pork val...
What You Need to Know Today: There has already been a strong run of flash soybean sales announcements in recent weeks, but more than 1.4 MMT reported this morning is an exceptionally large single-day total with major implications for the market. If the sales to China and unknown destinations w...
On Friday, at 6:57 AM, President Donald Trump announced, via a social media post, a 90-day window during which up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef could be imported outside of tariff-rate quotas—a move aimed at bringing down costs for American consumers. This is the secon...
From WPI Consulting
Accountability and a comprehensive approach to export programming
WPI’s team helped construct a strategic approach to develop, implement, and track promotional activities in 8 key regions across the globe for an agricultural export association. With continued progress measurement and strategic advisory services from WPI, the association has seen its ROI from investments in promotional programming increase by 44 percent over the past 5 years. Not only does this type of holistic approach to organizational strategy provide measurable results to track and analyze, it fosters top-down and bottom-up organizational accountability.