Monday’s trade at the CBOT was interesting with corn, soybeans, and wheat all rallying off fresh contract or selloff lows overnight, but only corn holding onto those gains by the closing bell. For corn futures, the market seemed to be more focused on the USDA’s ending stocks figure that will be similar to 2023 and not as bearish as initially feared. That helped drive some early short covering, and the technical move continued throughout the day. Soybeans and wheat tried to rally alongside corn but lacked the fundamental support with favorable weather in the Midwest, the ongoing wheat harvest, and a neutral or slightly bearish WASDE. Except for corn, trading volume was muted across the ag space to start the week and funds were re...
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.