Regulated Commodity The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced that it will hold hearings at the end of the month to examine issues related to regulating the trading of bitcoin. The value of bitcoin has risen rapidly in recent weeks as speculators have taken a more dominant position than those simply using it as a transactional medium. Gabriel Rubin in the Wall Street Journal compared bitcoin to gold, the value of which rises and falls with supply and demand but ultimately drops to the cost of production. However, the production of bitcoin is capped, and while gold has competition from silver and other precious metals, the ability to conjure competitor cryptocurrencies is unlimited. Indeed, there is an argument that Ethereu...
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.