China was, of course, the focus for today’s trading but the CBOT opened with notable activity before the trade agreement was released. Wheat futures posted strong gains early in the trading day with buy wheat/sell corn trade. The soy complex was broadly weaker after palm oil futures and European rapeseed markets fell during the overnight session. Weaker energy markets helped facilitate sell soyoil/buy soymeal trade, though none of the soy complex products posted a bullish day. This afternoon, President Trump and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He signed the so-called Phase One trade deal between the two countries. The long-awaited agreement is the first step in a full resolution to the trade war that has persisted since mid-2018 and c...
Key Takeaways: Dry bulk markets remain mixed with Capesize vessels seeing continued pressure from weaker demand while fixtures and rate strength gradually increases towards the smaller vessel classes. Tanker markets are pulling back from their recent highs as tonnage moves out of the Mid...
The Trump import plan for 300,000 MT of beef supplies used for ground beef, i.e., lean trim, from September through November has, according to Secretary Brooke Rollins, brought some relief to beef prices. The Executive Order states that the Secretary of Agriculture will analyze and review the m...
Key Takeaways: Texas illustrates the assumptions underlying the 2025 FMMO reform; Idaho exposes their limitations. The Southwest order blend (roughly 27 percent Class I, 32 percent Class III and 31 percent Class IV) exposes Texas producers to every lever USDA adjusted, with a near-neutral proj...
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.