The soybean analysis of last Friday (see Ag Perspectives, 2 December) discussed the role of emotion as a driver of the soy complex, but another factor is really the key component.The soybean analysis of last Friday (see Ag Perspectives, 2 December) discussed how emotion has been a driving factor of the soy complex as funds have been doing victory laps while fundamental traders have been getting beaten up rather badly, but demand is really the key component. This is especially true of export demand, which doesn’t appear to be abating. This morning USDA announced the sale of another 426,000 MT of soybeans to China, bringing the current total to 25.7 MMT compared with 18.9 MMT a year ago at the same time. It also brings this year’s sales and 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.