There were several comments floating around about U.S. farmers planting more corn acres than a year ago because last year's profits were so big. That won't happen in 2014 as every crop budget worksheet shows breakeven at best. General Comments Soybeans were strong again in the Sunday evening session, while corn and wheat traded lower. Soybean and soymeal futures never really faltered throughout the session as wheat moved from lower to higher, and corn simply nudged back toward unchanged. There were no export sales or sales cancellation announcements from USDA today. Weekly export inspections for corn, wheat and soybeans were either right on or just above the range of estimates.Funds were again buyers of soybeans and soymeal, small buyers...
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.