World Perspectives

Trade, Payrolls and Productivity

Imports and exports both declined steeply in January, driven by two key temporary factors. Meanwhile, like a plow horse, the progress in the labor market didn't stop for bad weather in February.A number of economic reports were issued this past Friday. Below is a summary:Trade: Imports and exports both declined steeply in January, driven by two key temporary factors. First, oil prices plummeted in January. The average price per barrel of crude petroleum imports fell 20 percent, the largest drop since the panic in late 2008 and early 2009. Second, labor disputes at West Coast ports helped reduce non-petroleum trade. For example, the total number of inbound and outbound containers fell 20 percent at the Port of Los Angeles and 24 percent at t...

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Summary of Futures

May 26 Corn closed at $4.4725/bushel, down $0.0175 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Wheat closed at $5.8025/bushel, down $0.1775 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Soybeans closed at $11.62/bushel, up $0.0375 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Soymeal closed at $314.1/short ton, up $2.3...

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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.

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