Corn lost ground with losses in wheat and soybeans. Some analysts expect the first weekly corn crop ratings of this season to reach record highs. We doubt that, based on too much rain in some areas, cold weather and some frost/freezes. General Comments Markets were firm overnight, led again by the wheat markets. The start of today's trading session, however, brought sellers and not buyers. This selling was attributed to a sharp change in direction of the U.S. dollar, which was weak early but rose to new three-week highs today. This is the first three-day holiday weekend of the summer in the U.S. Markets will be closed until 8 p.m. (EDT) Monday evening in observance of Memorial Day. We are already in somewhat of a weather market, at least...
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.