General Comments Markets were weak across the board today following yesterday's weak closes and because today was another one of those "risk off" days. With the Greek austerity agreements still a pipe dream, financial markets lost ground. Crude oil was down as much as $2 a barrel. The dollar was again very strong because no one wanted the euro. This pattern of trade has been in place since the Greek debt problem captured the world's financial headlines last August. Another Greek politician, the deputy foreign minister, resigned today because of the failure to reach a bailout agreement.In the meantime, USDA did announce the sales of 240,000 MT of corn to Egypt and 120,000 MT of soybeans to China. Corn and soybean basis levels remain very...
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.