The February Cold Storage report’s numbers reflect a significant drawdown in red meat and poultry stocks compared to one year ago. Total red meat and poultry inventories were down nearly 9 percent year-over-year, despite higher slaughter and meat production numbers for the month. The report reflects strong beef and pork demand, with low-cost pork gaining some advantage against higher-priced beef in consumers’ preferences. Overall, however, the report offers a strong demand outlook for the beef, pork, and poultry industries through at least Q2 2024. ...
Macro: Trade Flows Set the Tone Persian Gulf crude flows appear to be improving, with anecdotal estimates suggesting as much as 7–8 million barrels per day may now be leaving the region — nearly double the mid-July pace. That helps explain why crude has not maintained the full geopo...
Key Takeaways: The Panama Canal traded at a record $5.3 million for a transit slot this week as line-up times extend to 17 days. The difficulties transiting the Canal are supporting the PNW/Gulf spread. Tanker freight markets remain elevated as the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz continues. I...
Key Takeaways: Ethanol margins continue to retreat from recent highs as rising costs – particularly corn and natural gas – offset gains in ethanol and DDGS values. WPI’s models expect ethanol margins to broadly follow their seasonal pattern, declining into the new year,...
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.