Technical trading ruled the day at the CBOT/CME with overnight weakness in palm oil sending soyoil lower at the open. That set the stage for support in soybeans and meal as bear soyoil/meal or soybean spread trading developed. The wheat markets pulled back sharply at the open in a test of yesterday’s strength and newly formed support points. That support held, and all three classes of wheat finished with (relatively) minor losses. Funds are long wheat and are defending that position while cash SRW values firm. The trade is looking for USDA’s initial 2020 outlook in the Ag Outlook Forum tomorrow morning. Expectations are that some 93.5 million acres of corn will be seeded this coming year with 85 million acres of soybeans...
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.