Why have grain and soy markets broken out of their dull mode and rallied so sharply with the October WASDE now only three days away?Grain and soy futures opened the overnight session Sunday evening quietly and without much change in prices. While prices were eventually bid higher and trading volume picked up, there was nothing to indicate that the little overnight rally was anything more than the sort of price adjustments we saw during some of last week's market action. However, when soybean futures opened the day session Monday morning about 15 cents higher than Friday's closes with still higher prices quickly to follow as well as corn and wheat prices, it became apparent that Monday's rally was more than some minor consolidating adjustmen...
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.