CBOT markets were called to open lower on a mix of profit taking and lack of fundamental news, and futures responded accordingly. The CBOT was weaker through most of the day amid some testing of support levels, unwinding of spreads (particularly wheat/corn and soymeal/soyoil), and, of course, profit taking. Still, the soy complex finished higher amid strong basis levels and rising crush margins while wheat continued to show its strength and posted a sixth straight higher close. Livestock futures, particularly cattle, continue to rally as beef demand strengthens and as concerns about plants shutting down due to coronavirus impacts abate. One of the market’s chief concerns has been that if a packing plant employee tested positive...
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.