World Perspectives

Cost of Holiday Early Closures

It is Christmas Eve and U.S. commodity futures markets close 75 minutes earlier than usual. The cost of this 29 percent reduction in trading time is likely to be a drop in volume of more than 50 percent. Volume also drops in years in which the last trading session is not Christmas Eve (e.g. 2016 and 207), but by only around half as much. While the closes are generally mixed, more often than not over the past five years, the closes have involved small gains in the corn and soybean contracts, and not so much for wheat. The trade is conflicted this year in that the temptation is to book profits and exit riskier positions ahead of a long shutdown in the market. At the same time, there is a continuing bullish bent to the market and getting out...

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WPI Crop Progress and Conditions App (Updated 28 April)

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From WPI Consulting

Illuminating the value of technical research

On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.

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