World Perspectives
livestock

Livestock Roundup: Cattle on Feed Preview

USDA will release its Cattle on Feed report tomorrow; the pre-report consensus analysts’ estimate is for the inventory of cattle on feed as of 1 September to be 101 percent of last year. August placements and marketing are expected to be 98.5 and 96.5 percent respectively of last year’s totals. There was one less day in August 2024 compared to August 2023.

As always, the range for placement forecasts is the widest. The differing points of view are over the potential effects of weather, since August was drier than normal which would lead to more placements, versus total feeder cattle sales which were down from a year ago implying fewer placements.

Cattle on feed totals and placements start to pick up in August and continue...

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Export Sales

Export Sales and Shipments for March 13-19, 2026.  Wheat: Net sales of 397,200 metric tons (MT) for 2025/2026 were up noticeably from the previous week and up 46 percent from the prior 4-week average. Export shipments of 383,500 MT were unchanged from the previous week, but down 10 percent...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

May 26 Corn closed at $4.67/bushel, down $0.0025 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Wheat closed at $6.05/bushel, up $0.0725 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Soybeans closed at $11.7375/bushel, up $0.02 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Soymeal closed at $322.1/short ton, up $2.3 from...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: War Worries Continue to Drive the Narrative

War-related higher energies are a mixed story for ags. They could stymie economic growth and thus demand, but they open the door for better biofuel sales. Ags were mostly in the green today, betting on the biofuel market.  Reports Export Sales: Last week’s new commitments by foreign...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Export Sales

Export Sales and Shipments for March 13-19, 2026.  Wheat: Net sales of 397,200 metric tons (MT) for 2025/2026 were up noticeably from the previous week and up 46 percent from the prior 4-week average. Export shipments of 383,500 MT were unchanged from the previous week, but down 10 percent...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

May 26 Corn closed at $4.67/bushel, down $0.0025 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Wheat closed at $6.05/bushel, up $0.0725 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Soybeans closed at $11.7375/bushel, up $0.02 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Soymeal closed at $322.1/short ton, up $2.3 from...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: War Worries Continue to Drive the Narrative

War-related higher energies are a mixed story for ags. They could stymie economic growth and thus demand, but they open the door for better biofuel sales. Ags were mostly in the green today, betting on the biofuel market.  Reports Export Sales: Last week’s new commitments by foreign...

livestock

Why Beef and Pork Prices May Fall Despite Strong Demand

Beef prices dropped sharply this week, with the Choice cutout down about $11/cwt in the past six trading days. The move unnerved live cattle futures on Wednesday (though the market recovered Thursday) and quickly led to concerns about beef demand weakening. After all, isn’t this supposed...

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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.

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