The Fed's decision to move into round three of quantitative easing (QE3) was a bit of a surprise -- at least it wasn't expected to happen during the Fed's September meeting. Consensus opinion was that the Fed might hold out a bit longer to see how the economy is doing. Ultimately, it appeared that stagnation in the eurozone and in China trumped the will to wait. Global money supply has dropped recently, and in the U.S. the velocity of money has dropped as well. This year, the M2 money velocity dropped below an index of 1.6 for the first time since records have been kept (1959). Remember, a key to the financial crisis was a drop in money velocity (see chart below and the drop between Q3 2008 and 2009).The fact that velocity is at an all-ti...
What You Need to Know Today: Commodities were mostly lower across the board today after yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a potential interest rate hike later in 2026. The dollar index reached its highest level in over a year, and a strong dollar makes U.S. agricultural expor...
Tomorrow is the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the USDA, along with the rest of the federal government and the CME, will be closed, so the monthly Cattle on Feed report was released a day early. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity on 1 June amounted...
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.