The CBOT was mostly lower in two-sided trade with the soy complexed leading the way lower. Soymeal fell to a three-month low as charts and technical conditions continue to deteriorate, and that helped pull soybeans lower too. The corn and wheat markets failed to find much support from Monday’s Crop Progress/Conditions report, despite worsening wheat conditions and delays planting the spring crops. The lack of reaction to USDA’s report yesterday suggests the market has already priced in these effects and it may take another week or two of significant planting delays and persistently low wheat ratings to spark another rally in futures. Outside markets were mixed with investors surprisingly adding to long equity positions ah...
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.
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...