Purported Solutions: Members of Congress are reportedly getting an earful from constituents over the price of gasoline. Republicans are saying the solution is more supply via increased drilling and allowing construction of the XL pipeline. Democrats want to restrict exports of refined petroleum products and put restrictions on speculators. Some want President Obama to deny another term for CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler if he fails to restrict speculators.Supply and Demand: If consumers and politicians do not like today's oil prices, they will hate them going forward. Writing on "Prospects for the Oil Importing Nations," IDB researcher Ramon Espinasa sees no favorable structural change when it comes to petroleum. Demand by rich countries is f...
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.