Another sharply weaker opening in U.S. equities set the stage for more selling and a weaker open at the CBOT, which is exactly what happened. Coronavirus restrictions are growing around the world and the economic impacts along with them. The only significant signs of pricing strength at the CBOT/CME today was in the cattle markets, where a massive jump in beef prices set the stage for an afternoon rally. That rally ultimately fizzled into limit losses (again) but helped support grains slightly. Nearly the entire CBOT ended lower today with demand concerns and weak energy prices weighing on ag prices. The COVID-19 outbreak is unprecedented in many ways, and at least one of those ways is positive. Cartoonist Scott Adams pointed out in...
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.