World Perspectives
livestock

Livestock Roundup: A Look at Cattle Herd Rebuilding

As WPI reported yesterday, the total supply of beef per capita is up this year over last based on imports and heavier slaughter weights; both are related to the pace of beef cow salughter. A bigger percent of fed cattle in the mix has resulted in heavier slaughter weights, as well as feeder cattle being fed longer to heavier weights. Plus, with cow slaughter down this year after two years of culling, imports of lean trim are up.Next week, the September monthly cow slaughter totals will be released, but through August, beef cow slaughter is down 15.7 percent from last year, and 26.9 percent from 2022, and 9.6 percent from the 2018-2021 average after two years of culling from drought impact. Based on the historical averages, cow slaughter cou...

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feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Mar 26 Corn closed at $4.2825/bushel, down $0.025 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Wheat closed at $5.38/bushel, down $0.035 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Soybeans closed at $10.6425/bushel, down $0.08 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Soymeal closed at $293.6/short ton, down $2.4...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Get Out of Dodge Friday

Although the week was mixed, there was a convincing move lower on Friday. The mood spelled exit as all the major agricultural contracts closed lower. Even those trading the three major wheat contracts, who had mostly countered the bearish sensibilities elsewhere on the board in many of the prev...

livestock

Livestock Round Up: Cattle Inventory Report

USDA’s semi-annual cattle report was issued today. The inventory of all cattle and calves in the U.S. as of 1 January was 86,155,300 head, slightly below—or about 316,900 head fewer than—the 86,472,200 head on 1 January 2025.  This year showed the seventh consecutive ann...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Mar 26 Corn closed at $4.2825/bushel, down $0.025 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Wheat closed at $5.38/bushel, down $0.035 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Soybeans closed at $10.6425/bushel, down $0.08 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Soymeal closed at $293.6/short ton, down $2.4...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Get Out of Dodge Friday

Although the week was mixed, there was a convincing move lower on Friday. The mood spelled exit as all the major agricultural contracts closed lower. Even those trading the three major wheat contracts, who had mostly countered the bearish sensibilities elsewhere on the board in many of the prev...

livestock

Livestock Round Up: Cattle Inventory Report

USDA’s semi-annual cattle report was issued today. The inventory of all cattle and calves in the U.S. as of 1 January was 86,155,300 head, slightly below—or about 316,900 head fewer than—the 86,472,200 head on 1 January 2025.  This year showed the seventh consecutive ann...

livestock

Cracking the Egg Price Mystery

Egg prices have been through a volatile 18 months, rallying sharply in LH 2024 and into early 2025 as bird flu decimated the U.S. layer flock. In early 2025, the U.S. layer flock for table eggs specifically fell to at least a 10-year low, at 286.4 million birds, down about 16 percent from the 2...

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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.

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