These rating numbers have become a trading game. The problem is they are simply not reliable indicators of crop yields and were really never intended to be used as such.Several states released their monthly winter wheat crop ratings last Monday. The first of the weekly national crop progress reports won't start until the first Monday in April. WPI has always expressed caution on how these weekly crop ratings should be viewed. Like so many other reports in the marketplace, these seem to have taken on a life of their own. Analysts are now trying to use the weekly ratings changes to forecast final crop yields from week to week, and the market of course anxiously awaits the numbers every Monday afternoon. These rating numbers have become a trad...
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...
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.