Milling Wheat The Black Sea market was lower last week as the old-crop/new-crop inverse is eroding. The new-crop harvest is expected to start in 2 weeks in the most Southern regions. The weather in Russia and Ukraine remains dry and the market is divided between those who believe the March/early April rains helped the wheat resist the last 6 weeks’ drought and those who believe the drought will cut yields. In addition to the drought, excessive rains in northern Russia have disrupted the spring wheat planting. Some 2 million hectares have either not been planted or were planted too late. Consequently, the range of estimates of the Russian crop is very wide. The most optimistic estimates are 75-77 MMT (versus 85 MMT last year) a...
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...
Dry bulk markets were volatile but ultimately steady this week with notable differences in rate developments across vessel classes. The Capesize sector, which led the recent rally in freight rates with its dramatic surge, pulled back slightly amid more cautious chartering activity, partic...
Key Market Insights Macro markets delivered a full whipsaw today. Early in the session, crude oil had rallied back above $100/barrel as traders priced renewed concern over the U.S.-Iran standoff and potential supply risk through the Strait of Hormuz. That strength helped pull grains off their o...
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.