The market impact of the latest round of U.S. tariffs on imports from China and the latter’s retaliation seems to have abated. It is now widely assumed that the two countries will impose tariffs on all the imports from each other. The chances that this bilateral trade war will last well into 2019 (and perhaps beyond) seem to be growing. Trade hawks in the Trump administration argue that this process will force China to change its trade practices and abandon its expansionist trade ambitions, but there is little evidence that they are or will be correct. Meanwhile, the virtual exclusion of U.S. soybean exports to China because of the 25 percent tariff was bound to create some opportunities for arbitrage, and we are seeing one such oppo...
Markets are caught between reasons to keep selling and reasons to take another look. Fund liquidation and renewed peace talks are pressuring grains, while fresh export business and some diesel relief offer encouragement. Corn recovered nearly 10 cents from its low to finish higher, while soybea...
Key Takeaways: President Trump announced $8 billion in additional agricultural assistance through the Harvest Fuel Relief Program, as USDA projects farm fuel and oil expenses will increase 28.8 percent in 2026. The package follows $12 billion in earlier relief, while government farm payments w...
Key Takeaways: A student group from the University of Chicago is protesting to bring back onion futures trading. Trading in onion futures was banned in 1958 following a spectacular bout of market manipulation that resulted in a corner of the physical market. The ban on onion futures led t...
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.