General Comments Buoyed by news that Greece's bond swap offer had almost 86 percent participation, which was much better than expected, markets were firm in the evening session. That gave world financial markets a lift. There was also some buying ahead of this morning's USDA report, although most of that buying was again centered in soybeans. The USDA reports did not provide much grist for the markets with few changes in the U.S. ending supply numbers while the South American production estimates were mostly in line with expectations.The markets quickly forgot about the USDA report and instead took note of another round of corn and soybean export sales plus strong rumors that private companies in China were again looking at U.S. corn. Th...
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.