The Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will be meeting again in June, and the markets are expecting a federal fund rate hike to 2 percent. The only real surprise would be if the increase was more than 25 basis points. When the rate was raised in March to the current 1.75 percent, the Fed released its so-called dot-plot. This is a chart with dots that each represent a Fed member’s view on where the federal fund rate should be at the end of the year as well as the following one. The dot-plot showed a median of 2.9 percent by the end of 2019, which could be interpreted as three rate increases this year (March and then presumably two more in June and December), and two next year with 3.4 percent reached in 2020...
What You Need to Know Today: After a period of limited activity, USDA reported a sizeable 613 KMT in soybean export sales, including 330 KMT to China and 283 KMT to unknown destinations, potentially also China. The purchases represent a meaningful pickup in demand and bring China closer to ful...
Key Takeaways: Consumer spending is a key driver of the U.S. economy, and the latest retail sales data indicate that spending remains robust despite inflation. In September, total retail and food service sales rose more than 6 percent year-over-year, with food service spending up 7 percent and...
The Trump import plan for 300,000 MT of beef supplies used for ground beef, i.e., lean trim, from September through November has, according to Secretary Brooke Rollins, brought some relief to beef prices. The Executive Order states that the Secretary of Agriculture will analyze and review the m...
From WPI Consulting
Accountability and a comprehensive approach to export programming
WPI’s team helped construct a strategic approach to develop, implement, and track promotional activities in 8 key regions across the globe for an agricultural export association. With continued progress measurement and strategic advisory services from WPI, the association has seen its ROI from investments in promotional programming increase by 44 percent over the past 5 years. Not only does this type of holistic approach to organizational strategy provide measurable results to track and analyze, it fosters top-down and bottom-up organizational accountability.