As we have commented before, the market has had a chance to study the April WASDE, and the focus has now shifted to weather, new crop prospects, the Chinese economy and the ever present macro factors that affect non-commercial money flows into and out of markets. Perceived changes in any one of these market influences can cause grain and soy prices to make sharp, short-term movements. With soybean prices around $14.00 and corn prices bumping against $6.50, a "sharp, short-term movement" is often be measured in dimes rather than pennies.U.S. corn planting is off to a record-early start, although a weekend Midwestern rain event may cause a brief delay. Conventional wisdom says that: 1) early planting adds corn acres and subtracts soybean ac...
Key Takeaways: President Trump announced $8 billion in additional agricultural assistance through the Harvest Fuel Relief Program, as USDA projects farm fuel and oil expenses will increase 28.8 percent in 2026. The package follows $12 billion in earlier relief, while government farm payments w...
Key Takeaways: A student group from the University of Chicago is protesting to bring back onion futures trading. Trading in onion futures was banned in 1958 following a spectacular bout of market manipulation that resulted in a corner of the physical market. The ban on onion futures led t...
Beef packer margins deteriorated to $141/head last week, down $55 from the prior week as fed cattle prices strengthened while the Choice cutout remained nearly unchanged. The cutout held near $373/cwt while fed cattle prices climbed $4/cwt to $224/cwt, narrowing processor profits. Despite the d...
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.