Hot, dry conditions over southern and western Argentina had been one of the key fundamental support pillars for the soy market, and the weekend rains kicked that pillar away. General Comments U.S. stocks were mixed, the U.S. dollar gained on expectations that the Fed will further dial back on quantitative easing and China's central bank pumped more money into the Chinese economy to ease credit, which helped crude oil and copper prices gain.Last week's grain inspection volumes were out today due to the holiday on Monday, and they once again show solid exports for the week ending 16 January. During that week, 104.4 million bushels of grain and soybeans were inspected for export. That is down slightly from the 108.6 million bushel total 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.