General Comments Recall how prices sold off going into the November WASDE, only to realize that bearish anticipation was perhaps exaggerated. A repeat may presently be occurring in anticipation of EPA adjusting down its mandates of future ethanol consumption. As a result, the new rule of thumb for savvy traders seems to be, "Sell the rumor, buy the fact". The opportunity may be created by traders who currently hold winning short positions and find it difficult to take profits prior to the December corn contract returning to its recent lows. (Many speculative traders find it more difficult to remember another popular trading phrase, "Pigs get killed.")There is already a general expectation that EPA will moderately reduce the mandate for...
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.