Next autumn, when we look back at the 2013/14 U.S. corn and soybean crops and the cash and futures markets, we just might conclude that the last full week of May was one of the most significant weeks of the entire production/market cycle. We are too conservative to flatly predict this will be the case, but last week certainly has all of the appearance of being something of a watershed.As can be seen, July soybeans had a rather wild week. The week's high price (on 23 May) was up about $0.93 from the close on the previous Friday (17 May). November soybeans were somewhat less wild with a $0.73 difference between the week's high and the close on the previous Friday. However, what was really wild was the action in the July/November inverse. It...
What You Need to Know Today: Commodities were mostly lower across the board today after yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a potential interest rate hike later in 2026. The dollar index reached its highest level in over a year, and a strong dollar makes U.S. agricultural expor...
Tomorrow is the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the USDA, along with the rest of the federal government and the CME, will be closed, so the monthly Cattle on Feed report was released a day early. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity on 1 June amounted...
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.