World Perspectives
feed-grains soy-oilseeds

More Questions for Grain Markets

Grain and soy futures markets often pose more questions than answers. In terms of trade volume and volatility that is a good thing since it is questions not answers that fuel markets. In that sense last week’s WASDE answered a few questions at least temporarily but raised many more. USDA’s long-awaited September U.S. corn and soybean yield and production estimates put numbers on the amount of damage done by the late season western Corn Belt drought and the derecho winds that tore across Iowa. NASS/USDA dropped harvested acreage by 500,000 (the Iowa storm) and its corn yield estimate 3.3 BPA from its August number leading to estimated 2020/21 production of 14.9 billion bu (down 378 million from last year). The soybean yield fell...

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feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Black Sea Regional Analysis

Russian Grains Market: 8–12 December 2025 Russia’s grain market continued its bearish trend that began in early December. Global fundamentals remain the primary pressure point, and Russia is no exception given its strong linkage to international trade flows. Exceptions include barte...

livestock

Livestock Industry Margins

Beef packer margins reversed sharply lower last week, swinging back into negative territory after six straight weeks of positive returns. Margins fell $145/head to –$75 as fed cattle prices rebounded $7/cwt (live basis), while the Choice cutout slipped nearly $7/cwt. The rapid compression...

FOB Prices and Freight Rates App (Updated 17 December)

WPI Grain Prices and Freight Rate App Note: you can also visit the app directly by clicking here. Supplemental Information The section below offers a concise view of the options available in the current version of the WPI FOB Price and Freight Rate app, along with a short “How To”...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Black Sea Regional Analysis

Russian Grains Market: 8–12 December 2025 Russia’s grain market continued its bearish trend that began in early December. Global fundamentals remain the primary pressure point, and Russia is no exception given its strong linkage to international trade flows. Exceptions include barte...

livestock

Livestock Industry Margins

Beef packer margins reversed sharply lower last week, swinging back into negative territory after six straight weeks of positive returns. Margins fell $145/head to –$75 as fed cattle prices rebounded $7/cwt (live basis), while the Choice cutout slipped nearly $7/cwt. The rapid compression...

FOB Prices and Freight Rates App (Updated 17 December)

WPI Grain Prices and Freight Rate App Note: you can also visit the app directly by clicking here. Supplemental Information The section below offers a concise view of the options available in the current version of the WPI FOB Price and Freight Rate app, along with a short “How To”...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Downtrend Dominance; Wheat Hits New Lows; Soy Falls on Crush Numbers

Each year, the Chinese zodiac calendar features one animal to mark and typify the coming 365 days. If that process were applied to CBOT trade, Tuesday would have been the “day of the bear”, with all major grain markets ending in the red. The only specific trigger was the bearish NOP...

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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.

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