The CBOT ended sharply higher on Friday afternoon with corn, soybeans, wheat, and soyoil all posting new contract highs. Early trade was muted/lower as USDA’s confirmation of 1.36 MMT of corn sold to China elicited a “sell the fact” response. Chinese purchases have been rumored all week and USDA’s announcement was expected and did little to bolster markets. China is thought to have also secured 3-4 MMT earlier this week, of which some is coming from the Gulf during October-November and some in December-January from the PNW. Chinese demand remains robust and places greater reliance on U.S. new crop supplies amid the Brazilian safrinha crop’s plight. Moreover, China’s aggressive new crop import pace runs co...
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.