It has been a few years since markets were whipsawed by a series of inexplicable quarterly stocks surprises from USDA. Even if those numbers to be released on 29 September do deviate some from expectations, potential market reaction will be muted.It was not so many years ago that traders of both grain and soy futures viewed each of USDA’s quarterly stocks estimates with considerable trepidation. This was because those numbers had somewhat of a history, based on reasonably well-known use factors, of not tracking well with the previous such estimates. This was especially true for corn. Thanks to regular weekly data, private analysts could fairly calculate the volumes of corn exported and consumed by ethanol production during a particular thre...
What You Need to Know Today: Russia rejected calls for a ceasefire in the Black Sea, including a proposal to halt attacks on civilian shipping that could help restore grain flows from Ukrainian ports. Tyson Foods announced plans to permanently close its Joslin, Illinois, beef processing facili...
The big news in the cattle markets yesterday was Tyson Foods’ move to close two more beef plants. One of them, the Joslin, Illinois, plant was shuttered immediately after the announcement. The other, in Eagle Mountain, Utah, is a case-ready plant that does not slaughter cattle. Tyson also...
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Wednesday. In July, the CPI rose 0.1 percent, seasonally adjusted, and rose 3.4 percent over the last 12 months, not seasonally adjusted. The index for all items less food and energy, or the “core” infla...
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.