Looking at recent market action, one might argue that bulls have the soybean market and bears own the corn market. Maybe this is an obvious conclusion beause once the corn market gets by a summer supply squeeze, U.S. corn supplies appear headed for a record-high level. And on the contrary, U.S. soybean supplies will tighten significantly as the drought-reduced South American soybean production leaves U.S. soybeans to fill world demand at least until March 2013.Lost in the push/pull between corn bears and soybean bulls is the changing role being played by wheat. Simply put, it appears that wheat is quietly replacing corn as the market leader among grains. Evidence of this is the price action of wheat and corn futures during May. From 1 May...
Key Takeaways: President Trump announced $8 billion in additional agricultural assistance through the Harvest Fuel Relief Program, as USDA projects farm fuel and oil expenses will increase 28.8 percent in 2026. The package follows $12 billion in earlier relief, while government farm payments w...
Key Takeaways: A student group from the University of Chicago is protesting to bring back onion futures trading. Trading in onion futures was banned in 1958 following a spectacular bout of market manipulation that resulted in a corner of the physical market. The ban on onion futures led t...
Beef packer margins deteriorated to $141/head last week, down $55 from the prior week as fed cattle prices strengthened while the Choice cutout remained nearly unchanged. The cutout held near $373/cwt while fed cattle prices climbed $4/cwt to $224/cwt, narrowing processor profits. Despite the d...
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.