Hormuz Strategy China has been assisting Iran under a 25-year strategic agreement that has 90 percent of Iranian crude going to the Middle Kingdom. Iran is not currently blocking tankers passing through the Strait and on their way to China. At the same time, China is providing Iran with dual-use goods, while the U.S. expends military—and thus economic resources—trying to reopen the Strait for other oil buyers. No Free Lunch China imported a record 110 MMT of soybeans last year and is determined to reduce its import dependence. Beijing wants consumers to change their eating habits, and farmers to change the diet of pigs. People are supposed to consume less vegetable oil while eating more legumes and dairy. Changing people&r...
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.
Commodity markets – being composed primarily of human beings – reflect the impatience and forever forward-looking nature of humans. In the present case, this means that while the September WASDE offered some much-needed and much-desired updates, markets are now focused on that etern...