World Perspectives

War on Words; Defense Kills Permanence; War Changes Market – But How?

War on Words Autocratic regimes can be dystopian and filled with censorship. Russia’s Vladimir Putin has ordered information sources to not call his assault on Ukraine an “attack,” an “invasion,” or a “war.” Instead, it is to be called a special operation. Using any of the banned descriptors could lead to 15 years in jail. This must have been the fear of USDA analysts in lockup writing today’s WASDE report. They referred to it as “Russia’s recent military action in Ukraine…” They did not completely kowtow to the Russian line, but they kind of did. The USDA/FAS writers of today’s Grain: World Markets and Trade report were a little more daring, which is kind of fu...

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Market Commentary: The Tempo not the Quantum

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Quarterly Hogs and Pigs Report

USDA released its quarterly Hogs and Pigs report today. The inventory of all hogs and pigs on 1 December was 75.5 million head, up 1 percent from December 2024, and up slightly from 1 September 2025.  Breeding inventory, at 5.95 million head, was down 1 percent from last year and up sligh...

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Summary of Futures

Mar 26 Corn closed at $4.475/bushel, up $0.005 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Wheat closed at $5.17/bushel, up $0.015 from yesterday's close.  Jan 26 Soybeans closed at $10.515/bushel, down $0.0175 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Soymeal closed at $304.2/short ton, up $2.3 from...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

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Mar 26 Corn closed at $4.475/bushel, up $0.005 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Wheat closed at $5.17/bushel, up $0.015 from yesterday's close.  Jan 26 Soybeans closed at $10.515/bushel, down $0.0175 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Soymeal closed at $304.2/short ton, up $2.3 from...

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Livestock Industry Margins

Beef packer margins deteriorated further last week, extending their move into negative territory after early December’s strong profits. Margins fell another $65/head to –$140 as fed cattle prices held firm while the Choice cutout slipped nearly $2/cwt. The tightening spread reflects...

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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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