I often long for the good old days when the commodity futures markets opened at 9:30 a.m. and closed at 1:15 p.m. Life was much more comfortable and certain then. Traders and speculators only had to be glued to their screens for those 3 hours and 45 minutes a day, and there was no reason to spend your Sunday evening wondering whether corn, soybeans or wheat were trading. Of course, those were also the days when agricultural commodity markets were concerned only with agricultural events like weather and demand. We didn't worry about how early you could retire, who was going to pay for that retirement, or if you lived in Greece. We didn't worry about a Facebook IPO. We didn't worry about the sudden emergence of a major export competitor lik...
What You Need to Know Today: Declining crop conditions ratings and shaky results from the Pro Farmer crop tour sent grains sharply higher on Tuesday. The Pro Farmer tour in Ohio pegged the state yield at 180.18 BPA, about 5.5 BPA below the tour’s 2025 estimate. Similarly, the Pro Farmer...
Mediterranean/Middle East/North Africa/Africa – MEA Region Egypt is the largest importer of Brazilian maize in the first six months of 2026. Egypt imported about 28.4 percent of maize exports, or about 1.7 million MT. Iran was the third-largest importer at 14.5 percent, or 900,000 MT, fol...
Based on a Depression-era statute, President Trump imposed 50 percent tariffs on $20 billion of exports to the U.S., or about 5.2 percent of the $383 billion worth of goods the U.S. imported from Canada in 2025, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Of that total, about $39.3 billion was agricu...
From WPI Consulting
Weighing in on strategic realignment
WPI’s team was retained by the governing board of a U.S. industry organization to review a decision, reached by vote, to invest significant assets into the development and management of an export trading company. WPI’s team conducted a formal review of this decision and concluded that the current level of market saturation would limit the benefits of the investment. Based on WPI’s analysis and recommended actions, the board subsequently reversed its decision and undertook a strategic planning effort to identify more impactful investments. On behalf of numerous clients, WPI has not only assisted in identifying strategic paths but also advised their implementation.