World Perspectives
livestock

Cattle Markets Still Screwy

The cattle marketing year is off to a strange start. In the first eight weeks of 2025, weekly carcass weights have averaged 40 pounds more than the same period last year. This component of production is driven by two factors: heavier carcass weights of steers and heifers, and the proportion of steers and heifers in the slaughter mix among cows and bulls.   This increase in market-ready supplies of fed cattle is likely supported in part by feedlots continuing to increase poundage per animal and packers reducing slaughter schedules in February. This improves operational efficiencies on a per-head basis, as packer margins are under pressure from paying much higher prices for fed cattle. As those measures are keeping cattle...

Related Articles
feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Caution About Supplies, Confidence in Demand

Although the soy complex and wheat opened lower, there was confidence in the corn number and by late morning most major contracts were in the green, aided by shorts that were selling at the end of the month to book profits. December HRS printed a new contract low today. There was high volume tr...

U.S. Labor Day Holiday

The U.S. will celebrate Labor Day on Monday, 1 September, and the U.S. markets as well as our office will be closed that day. The next Ag Perspectives will be published Tuesday, 2 September.  ...

Brazil Retaliation to U.S. Tariffs

The Foreign Ministry of Brazil notified the U.S. today that it has directed its trade body, Camex, to investigate whether it can retaliate against the 50 percent tariffs imposed by the Trump Administration on several goods imported from Brazil. The investigation will conducted be under a law pa...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Caution About Supplies, Confidence in Demand

Although the soy complex and wheat opened lower, there was confidence in the corn number and by late morning most major contracts were in the green, aided by shorts that were selling at the end of the month to book profits. December HRS printed a new contract low today. There was high volume tr...

U.S. Labor Day Holiday

The U.S. will celebrate Labor Day on Monday, 1 September, and the U.S. markets as well as our office will be closed that day. The next Ag Perspectives will be published Tuesday, 2 September.  ...

Brazil Retaliation to U.S. Tariffs

The Foreign Ministry of Brazil notified the U.S. today that it has directed its trade body, Camex, to investigate whether it can retaliate against the 50 percent tariffs imposed by the Trump Administration on several goods imported from Brazil. The investigation will conducted be under a law pa...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Dec 25 Corn closed at $4.2025/bushel, up $0.1025 from yesterday's close.  Dec 25 Wheat closed at $5.3425/bushel, up $0.0525 from yesterday's close.  Nov 25 Soybeans closed at $10.545/bushel, up $0.065 from yesterday's close.  Dec 25 Soymeal closed at $289/short ton, up $1.7 from...

Image
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.

Search World Perspectives

Sign In to World Perspectives

Don’t have an account yet? Sign Up