China to Begin Auctions of Soybeans from State Reserves China’s National Grain Trade Center today announced the government will begin its auctions of soybeans from state reserves on 14 June. The first auction will offer 300,000 MT from the 2012 and 2013 crops with the minimum acceptable price at 3,000 yuan/MT ($469.38/MT or $12.78/bushel). China does not report the total volume held in its state reserves or the amount it will offer during these auctions, which are typically conducted during the summer after farmers have marketed most of their previous crop and before the new crop is harvested. It will be interested to see how much interest there will be for soybeans that have been in storage for almost four or five years. S...
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.