After trading on both sides, soybeans, wheat and corn all closed higher in quiet trade. Wheat and soybeans were helped by good export sales volume last week, and while export corn sales were unimpressive, the influence from the other markets helped pull corn up to a modestly positive close. General Comments Outside markets were volatile overnight and again today. Stocks were all over the place with the Dow being down as much as 131 points, then up 39 points before closing down just 3 points. Crude oil fell below $90 before recovering to close up 13 cents at $90.86. The U.S. dollar index reversed and closed lower. Concerns about Europe's weak economy and the economic slowdown in China are unabated.None of the above seemed to matter much to...
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.