At today's Senate Agriculture Committee hearing, even Andrei Kirilenko, the former CFTC chief economist and now MIT professor brought in to critique HFT, outlined a regulatory path rather than a firing squad.Those who dislike and distrust speculators, particularly clever speculators, will not be mollified, but today's Senate Agriculture Committee hearing suggested that high frequency trading (HFT) is here to stay. Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) chief Terry Duffy claimed concurrence by regulators that today's futures markets are more open and transparent than ever before. He noted that electronic trading has increased liquidity and narrowed bid/ask prices. Additionally, since the CME has imposed price/quantity limits and other means of bl...
From WPI Consulting
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.