The market opened mixed but ended mostly in the green. Prices were boosted by decent export sales, especially in wheat, very few deliveries against expiring May contracts, and of course short-covering. Although corn rallied back today it still lacks the rationale for a move higher. Unless China does something uncharacteristic, the overhang of surplus stocks is not going to go away. The International Grains Council (IGC) lowered its projected global grain use in 2019/20, including deleting 11 MMT of corn used for ethanol. Thirty-five percent of U.S. ethanol plants are off-line and the remaining 140 plants are running below capacity. There are visibly more cars on the road this week than in the past, but travel will remain...
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.