This week’s inflation reports have added some turbulence to the Federal Reserve’s approach to bringing the economy in for a soft landing. The Fed started an unprecedented set of rate hikes to the federal funds rate in Q2 2022 that helped tame inflation through Q3 2024. The economy entered Q4 2023 with signs that inflation had been squeezed out, only to see it reignite in late 2023 and carry through Q1 2024. The March consumer price index (CPI) was up 0.4 percent month over month, the same as February, and up 3.5 percent on a year over year basis. Core inflation – excluding food and energy, and the category that the Fed watches – was up 3.8 percent, still nearly double the Fed’s goal.&nb...
What You Need to Know Today: Markets got a surprise with a corn yield of 181.2 bushels/acre in the October WASDE, above the average estimate of 177.6 bushels/acre and up from USDA’s September estimate of 178.5 bushels/acre. Although stronger demand is expected to absorb some of the addit...
Key Takeaways: On Friday afternoon, President Trump announced that Russia will “immediately supply over 300,000 Tons of Diesel Fuel” to the United States. The deal, typical of this administration, is light on details but promises an additional 500,000 tons in November and 1 m...
The USDA has lowered its 2026 red meat production forecasts slightly while forecasting a slight increase in broiler production. Beef is now projected at 24.802 billion pounds, 75 million pounds less than in September. Cow slaughter is expected to be up; however, this will be offset by lower ste...
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.