Soybeans As has been widely reported, the U.S. imposed tariffs on specific Chinese imports on 6 July, and China reciprocated with retaliatory tariffs on soybeans and other American products. The market had already prepared for this by increasing Brazilian soybean basis and pushing CBOT futures lower. To the surprise of most analysts, however, the CBOT jumped 38 cents higher on Friday in a seemingly inexplicable move. Chinese demand was tepid before the tariffs were imposed with crushers well covered for July/August shipments and further protected by huge domestic stocks. They are now waiting to see what will happen once the duties are in force. Will the governments start a new round of negotiations? Who will begin first? Supposedly, China...
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...