Retail sales rose 0.7 percent in November; this was slightly higher than the consensus expectations. There are a few nuances to consider, however. First, the Thanksgiving holiday was late this year. The holiday is on the fourth Thursday of the month. Given the way the calendar played out in 2024, and this being a leap year with an extra day in February, Thanksgiving was on 28 November – the latest possible date. Last year it was on 23 November and in 2022 was on 24 November. With Thanksgiving being late this year, so was Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the kickoff of the Christmas shopping season. Thus, there were fewer Christmas sale shopping days in November 2024 than in the past two years. For spending to increase over last year is a sign...
Key Market Insights Geopolitical Limbo: Geopolitical risk remained a key driver across global commodity markets today. President Trump stated that the Iran memorandum of understanding is not yet final and warned that military action could resume if negotiations fail. Both sides continue w...
Key Takeaways: Drought remains a major threat to global agricultural production, particularly in regions with limited rainfall and growing water scarcity. Commercially available drought-tolerant traits in corn, soybeans, and wheat have generally delivered modest yield improvements, limiting th...
Key Takeaways: Peace at last in the Persian Gulf? Over the weekend, the U.S. announced and Iranian officials confirmed a peace agreement, with formal ratification set for Geneva on 19 June. The announcement means the Strait of Hormuz is set to reopen fully and toll-free within 30 days.&n...
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.