As noted last week, WPI is starting a new weekly report on the IV “smile” of nearby corn, soybeans, SRW wheat, and live cattle futures. Our goal is to give you, near the start of the trading week, an idea of how the market believes futures prices will behave in the near future. If you like it this idea and the information below, let us know! Here are this week’s charts: Corn Much like last week, the options market appears to be bracing for higher corn prices. The IV on OTM calls approaches 35 percent of higher while OTM puts presently peak at 32 percent IV. Additionally, larger call OI exists for corn options, placing the put/call ratio at 0.75. Near-term fluctuations are likely, but the long-term trend for...
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.