Except for the cattle markets, the CBOT was sharply lower to start the week with trade policy, favorable weather, and weak technicals and large noncommercial short positions weighing on market sentiment. Cattle futures managed to rise to new all-time highs after last week’s record-breaking cash trade, and livestock markets are the one area where funds remain solidly bullish. In grains and oilseeds, a lack of any bullish news and the aforementioned weak technicals triggered steep selling, with corn leading the way. Except for some mild weather concerns in parts of the EU and Black Sea and a seemingly early end to Brazil’s rainy season, there are few weather threats for the major growing regions, which is pressuring market sentime...
What You Need to Know Today: The hot, dry weather forecast continues to drive strength in grain futures with corn and soybeans hitting another day of strong gains. Monday’s Crop Progress and Conditions data were in line with market expectations and showed relatively few concerns for the...
Yesterday we wrote about the Q1 GDP numbers and the June employment reports in an article entitled Real GDP for Q1 Relying on AI Buildout, Held Back by Consumer Spending. That article mentioned that consumer spending had become a drag on GDP. Nonetheless, real GDP in Q1 was revised upward to 2...
Key Takeaways: The Middle East and North Africa's arid climate and limited water resources have created a structural dependence on imported wheat. Government wheat tenders in major importing countries serve as important benchmarks for global trade, providing insight into exporter competitivene...
From WPI Consulting
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.