The CBOT was mostly lower to start the week with grain and oilseed futures seeing pressure develop after the U.S. and Colombia averted a possible tit-for-tat trade war over the weekend. Sunday saw both the U.S. and Colombian presidents threaten each other’s country with 25 percent tariffs following a spat over deporting migrants, with the two sides eventually reaching an agreement. The thought of raising costs by one-quarter on a top five U.S. corn importer and major crude oil supplier shocked markets and triggered “risk off” trade for the day. Corn, wheat, and soybeans all settled lower for the day with specs emerging as net sellers and booking profits on waning momentum. The weather in South America remains a concern goi...
What You Need to Know Today: Non-farm payrolls rose by 172,000 jobs in May, above economist expectations of 80,000 jobs. With the job market strong, the Fed may consider raising interest rates to tame inflation. The strong jobs report was a catalyst for lower risk appetite across financial and...
Newworld screwworm Update The detection of New World screwworm (NWS) in Texas on Wednesday has been volatile for the cattle markets. The confirmation came on Wednesday evening, and the futures market opened sharply lower on Thursday. Market participants cited unknowns about cattle supplies and...
With considerable fanfare—and few specifics—USDA last week announced its Great American Cotton Plan for 2026-2031. Secretary Brooke Rollins and industry leaders described the initiative as a comprehensive strategy to address the persistent challenges facing U.S. cotton production, d...
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.