Wheat was today's market leader with gains of 7-9 cents for SRW, HRW and HRS futures. Lowering world wheat prices are attracting demand. General Comments The important role that China now plays in the world economy was underlined today when HSBC put China's preliminary January Purchasing Manager's Index (PMI) at 49.6 versus December at 50.5. A PMI below 50.0 is seen as representing economic contraction, and this caused quite a negative reaction in world financial markets. U.S. and world stock markets were broadly lower with the Dow off 176 points for a third straight day of losses. Initially, the USD also fell on the news, but most other currencies later dropped even further. It was sort of a race to the bottom, so the USD index actually...
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.