Soybeans Global soybean markets have been quiet these past few weeks with trading houses very cautious since any agreement between the U.S. and China could quickly bring basis down. China clearly must import at least 3-5 MMT of U.S. soybeans in its best-case scenario and should normally import 25-30 MMT. Nevertheless, the U.S. is neither selling nor shipping any to China at this time. The trade war’s impact is evident in that the U.S. Gulf did not ship a single kilo to China in May or June versus a few vessels each month during March and April. Even those volumes were reduced as traders were growing nervous about the eventual tariffs and played it safe by limiting U.S. purchases. Chinese buyers keep saying that even if basis calcula...
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...