We’ve now had a couple of months in 2024 where economic report revisions have come in, and they have been significant. This has changed the outlook on the economy from bullish during the last part of 2023 and January, to now being more uncertain. First, the February payroll report showed an increase in non-farm jobs of 275,000, beating the consensus pre-report estimate of 200,000. However, that report came with downward revisions of 167,000 jobs to both the December and January initial estimates. That was the largest monthly downgrade for any non-COVID shutdown month since late 2008, at the beginning of the last recession. Thus, the adjusted February payroll report was just 108,000 above the original January level, and thus bel...
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...