Spread trade was the biggest feature of the day with traders rolling out of December contracts and into deferred contracts. December options expired this afternoon and there was a solid round of positioning/rolling contracts around that fact. Wheat futures were higher with no deliveries yet registered against the December contracts, highlighting the tight supply situation for SRW wheat. Funds were net sellers of corn, soybeans and wheat through Tuesday, per the CFTC’s latest report. Managed money traders are still slightly long soybeans (though that has likely been reversed by today’s trade) and are simply piling on the corn shorts. Trading in wheat was more muted with funds modest sellers amid better commercial HRW purch...
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.
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...