Grain market analysts eagerly await each USDA quarterly report on grain and soybean stocks. Analysts can study industry trends and such consumption data as is available to help formulate estimates of past and future demand for corn, wheat, soybeans and other crops, as many do. However, USDA's estimates of each crop's stocks at the end of each quarter provide the only measure of how much of each actually disappeared. That is to say, how much was used in some fashion during the preceding three months and what volume is still available for future use.Analysts must modify their assumptions about demand from all of the various sectors, so that they fit with the volumes of total use during the quarter indicated by USDA numbers and with the volu...
What You Need to Know Today: Chinese purchases of U.S. soybeans continued to accelerate, with USDA reporting another 558 KMT sold to China and 236 KMT to unknown destinations. Combined with sales announced Wednesday and Thursday, the latest purchases bring the three-day total to approximately...
Key Takeaways: With the fall calf run now upon us, producers are finally getting a glimpse of what their realized profits will be for 2026. Some producers may have already obtained a strong estimate of 2026 revenues, especially if calves were forward sold in, for example, the mid-summer...
As fall begins, wild migratory birds are starting their seasonal migration. That has the industry and government officials worried about the potential spread, again, of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). Some members of Congress have called for the United States to be prepared for a pote...
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.