The upward thrust of grain and soy futures prices continued overnight as did the upsurge in trading volume. Also continuing was the downward trend of the U.S. dollar, which again helped support grain and soy prices throughout much of the session. Fresh comments today from Treasury Secretary Mnuchin in Davos kept up the pressure on it. More or less repeating his remarks from yesterday, he was quoted saying that the Trump administration was not concerned by the weakness of the U.S. dollar. President Trump later said that it should get stronger along with the U.S. economy, which then sent the U.S Dollar Index spiraling higher. Soybean futures prices firmed even more during the first few hours of the day session. At one point, March soybeans t...
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.