Surprise election outcomes in the U.S. and Europe as well as political chaos in South America have set the stage for potentially volatile foreign exchange markets, which could impact food and commodity prices despite relatively stable supply/demand fundamentals.The primary election this past weekend in France is yet another in a string of intriguing political developments around the world that started on 22 November 2015. This is when Mauricio Marci, the then-mayor of Buenos Aires and a member of the Republican Proposal Party (PRO), won the presidential runoff in Argentina against Daniel Scoli, the then-governor of Buenos Aires Province and candidate of outgoing President Cristina Fernandez’s Front for Victory Party (FPV). Although Scoli ha...
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.