Wheat, the soy complex and now corn are all re-emphasizing the lesson to both speculative and commercial traders that excessive reliance upon automated indicators can result in substantial returns being left on the table. General Comments Corn, wheat and the soy complex all closed higher today. Both wheat and the soy complex closed strong enough to place most traders holding short positions on margin call. The March corn contract is pressing up against the upper end of its recent trading range and will likely punch through resistance at the 12 November level of $4.50 per bushel. This price action makes sense. World Perspectives noted back on 7 February that this seemed destined to occur if USDA's February report indicated U.S. corn ending...
What You Need to Know Today: Shipping in the Black Sea is at a standstill, with neither Ukraine nor Russia yet ready to swerve in this game of maritime and export brinkmanship. Israeli media suggests the U.S. and Iran may be close to making a deal or at least restoring the memorandum of unders...
Just when it seemed the restaurant industry had finally moved beyond the pandemic disruption, the arithmetic of the American food dollar caught up with it. The National Restaurant Association projects that total restaurant and foodservice sales will reach a record $1.55 trillion in 2026, but on...
Key Takeaways: Brazil’s pork exports have more than doubled since 2019 as competitive feed costs, ASF-free status, and expanding global demand have strengthened the country’s position in international markets. Brazil’s abundant domestic production of corn and soybeans provide...
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.