Note: CME grain and soy markets are closed tomorrow (Friday) and will re-open Easter Sunday evening. U.S. government offices will be open tomorrow, however, and regularly scheduled reports such as the CFTC’s Commitment of Traders (COT) report will be released then. U.S trade negotiators announced that the Lighthizer/Mnuchin trade negotiating team will go to Beijing the week of 29 April for further face-to-face discussions, and the Chinese trade delegation will return to Washington the following week. The hope now is that an agreement can be reached in time for signing in late May or early June. The endgame that Treasury Secretary Mnuchin touted two weeks ago has now gone into extra innings. Grain markets saw limited price action ove...
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.