U.S. soybean, corn and wheat markets finished the night session up 1-2 cents despite the U.S./China trade war becoming a reality overnight. However, the soybean and soymeal markets opened strong today and moved to big gains by midmorning, putting the trade issues behind for at least today. Corn and wheat traded slightly higher much of the session and, like soybeans, extended those gains in the last hour. USDA will release its updated production estimates and revised WASDE next Thursday. Trading volume was pretty good for a Friday in a holiday-shortened week. U.S. equity markets were also strong today despite the tariffs. Crude oil was firm, and the U.S. dollar was weaker. As the eight-14 day weather maps show (see below), the extended Cor...
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.