The CBOT had relatively little fresh news upon which to trade Wednesday, which meant markets were largely at the mercy of fund positioning and existing trends. As equity markets fell sharply for the day and currencies wobbled, traders began looking for safe-haven assets, which helped diminish CBOT trading volume and any upside potential as well. Corn and soymeal both still finished with quiet gains, however, as technical momentum and short covering continue. The soybean and soyoil markets, on the contrary, fell amid outside market pressure in the latter and more confident fund selling in the former. Wheat futures were mixed but the MGEX spring market saw pressure from the first results of the Wheat Quality Tour. Overall, the day had the fee...
What You Need to Know Today: The U.S. Treasury Department authorized the production, delivery, and sale of Iranian oil for 60 days after “productive talks” with Iran in Switzerland over the weekend. Chevron and Microsoft entered into a 20-year agreement to develop Project Kilby, a...
When the USMCA was renegotiated in 2020, it added a sunset review process under which all three countries — the U.S., Mexico and Canada — are to meet on 1 July to indicate whether they want to renew the pact for another 16 years. That deadline is coming up in nine days, and Trump ha...
Wheat Argentina's wheat planting campaign advanced 13.4 percentage points week over week. Despite limited rainfall, low temperatures, and elevated atmospheric humidity, soil recovery remains slow across the southern agricultural belt, where field access for machinery continues to be constrained...
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.