It is axiomatic that when freely traded market prices move up or down -- no matter for what -- some people will always be made unhappy. We have often said that markets are made by expressions of opinions. When prices move, those holding contrary opinions are usually not pleased. When prices move enough and affect enough people, those who are unhappy about the price move tend to complain, and when the complaints are loud enough, they are picked up by politicians. It has ever been thus!We all recall 2008 and 2009 when politicians around the world accused speculators and "excessive speculation" of causing energy markets and food-related markets to rise to inflated price levels at the expense of consumers, particularly poor consumers. Then, a...
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.