After a week of anticipation, yesterday USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue announced that the $12 billion trade mitigation package that was expected today will instead be released on Monday. From his comments over the past month, the following is known:
Payments to commodity producers will total $7-9 billion. Trade promotion funding will be about $200 million. The remaining funds will go to commodity and food purchases for donations to food banks and other outlets, which simple arithmetic indicates will be somewhere between $2.8 and $4.8 billion.
Based on the above, the third-listed allocation has the biggest potential short-term market impact. Consider the total value of potential food purchases and the effect of the distribution of those...
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...