With the excitement of the Phase One deal fading into the rearview mirror, the CBOT was broadly lower again as traders and analysts attempt to pencil out the agreement’s impacts on agriculture. Disappointment about the (expected) lack of commodity-specific details left corn and the soy complex to drift lower for the day. Once again, wheat was the upside leader with March Chicago futures posting a new high for their move after technical considerations strengthened overnight. The soy complex came under some pressure today as buy wheat/sell soybeans and/or corn trade developed. With the Brazilian and Argentine crops looming, it will be difficult for corn/soybeans to make a sizeable rally without exports supporting the market. The Phase O...
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.