The big story in the U.S. 2014 trade balance came in two chapters with the first being the labor dispute at the West Coast ports and the second concerning the precipitous drop in oil prices.The U.S. recorded a trade deficit of $3.9 billion in November of 2014, which compares with an average of $12.86 billion from 1950 through 2014.The big story in the trade balance came in two chapters with the first being the labor dispute at the West Coast ports and the second concerning the precipitous drop in oil prices. The net effect of these was a decline in both imports and exports in November. Imports decreased by $5.2 billion compared to a smaller $1.9 billion drop in exports, leaving the trade deficit at $39 billion, the lowest in almost a year (...
What You Need to Know Today: Russia rejected calls for a ceasefire in the Black Sea, including a proposal to halt attacks on civilian shipping that could help restore grain flows from Ukrainian ports. Tyson Foods announced plans to permanently close its Joslin, Illinois, beef processing facili...
The big news in the cattle markets yesterday was Tyson Foods’ move to close two more beef plants. One of them, the Joslin, Illinois, plant was shuttered immediately after the announcement. The other, in Eagle Mountain, Utah, is a case-ready plant that does not slaughter cattle. Tyson also...
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Wednesday. In July, the CPI rose 0.1 percent, seasonally adjusted, and rose 3.4 percent over the last 12 months, not seasonally adjusted. The index for all items less food and energy, or the “core” infla...
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.