Corn and wheat futures maintained their winning ways today on more wet weather across the Corn Belt. 1-2 inches of rainfall were common across Iowa today, and there is a great deal of heavy rain in the five-day forecast. NOAA released its updated long-lead forecasts, which show June and July will continue to have above-normal moisture and below-normal temperatures. A month ago, the same outlooks appeared drier. Sunday’s rainfall recaps and extended forecasts will set the tone for next week’s markets. Obviously, Monday’s weekly crop progress numbers will be very important. The market will also evaluate today’s Commitment of Traders report to see how much the funds reduced their short positions this week. U.S. equity...
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.