Today was the last trading day for options on the November soybean contract. It staged a mini-rally in the last minutes of trade and made a run at $9.00 before losing ground in the final minute and finishing 3 lower. General Comments Markets were steady to a bit higher overnight on positive news from Asia and Europe’s financial markets, but prices turned lower at today’s opening and spent all of the session lower. Good rains across most of the U.S. southern Plains hard red winter wheat region pressured wheat. Today was the last trading day for options on the November soybean contract, which might have pressured that market. Corn has no place to go without support from either wheat or soybeans. USDA announced more soybean export sales and...
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.