General Comments Markets were weak early in the evening session but crawled back to finish slightly higher. The impetus for the recovery was strong trade in Europe's financial markets followed by some very good economic data from the U.S. jobs market. The U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 8.3 percent in January and 243,000 jobs were created. That payroll data pushed U.S. financial markets to better than 1 percent gains early on and the market held those gains throughout the session. The dollar was neutral today and crude oil was up nearly a dollar most of the day.The CME opened with strong gains in wheat, corn and soybeans, but wheat and corn futures were trading lower within the first minute or two of trading. Meanwhile, soybeans held t...
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...
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.