General Comments The market seemed prepared for a day of profit taking today at the end of a much stronger week of trade than what most were looking for. Markets were steady to slightly lower overnight in very light trade. They opened steady this morning, but soybeans again took the lead and quickly traded higher. There was never much excitement today. Corn and soybean prices had a small flurry of buying that was reportedly caused by talk that a grain company had cut its 2011/12 U.S. soybean carryout projection all the way down below 200 million bushels. That would indeed have bullish implications. There was also more talk of potential labor issues in Argentina that could affect shipping.Financial markets were steady and the dollar was d...
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.