General Comments Soybeans set the trading pace overnight with strong gains, and those gains pushed prices even higher when today's session started trading. The super strong export sales pace and strong basis levels are the driving forces. USDA announced another 115,000 MT of soybean sales to China this morning. The ride higher in soybeans did not support corn and only marginally supported wheat.Outside markets were mixed today with crude oil down $0.50-1.00 a barrel. U.S. equity markets started the day mixed, but eventually turned higher. This was the seventh consecutive week of a higher close in U.S. equities. Metals markets were also mixed. The dollar was quite weak.Today was the last trading day for options against the December futu...
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.