General Comments The bearish news overnight was J.P. Morgan's announcement that it had lost $2 billion in the last six weeks from poor derivative trades. There is some talk the loss might exceed $3 billion. That is more than chump change. It comes as a surprise simply because it appeared that the disastrous derivative trade losses back in 2008 might have cured the appetite for risk in those markets. It also raises the question of whether or not part of the heavy selling across markets over the last several weeks was somehow connected to the J.P. Morgan problem.Financial markets didn't really need another reason to be weak with the ongoing eurozone problems, but the J.P. Morgan news certainly added another bearish element. Crude oil was w...
What You Need to Know Today: Declining crop conditions ratings and shaky results from the Pro Farmer crop tour sent grains sharply higher on Tuesday. The Pro Farmer tour in Ohio pegged the state yield at 180.18 BPA, about 5.5 BPA below the tour’s 2025 estimate. Similarly, the Pro Farmer...
Mediterranean/Middle East/North Africa/Africa – MEA Region Egypt is the largest importer of Brazilian maize in the first six months of 2026. Egypt imported about 28.4 percent of maize exports, or about 1.7 million MT. Iran was the third-largest importer at 14.5 percent, or 900,000 MT, fol...
Based on a Depression-era statute, President Trump imposed 50 percent tariffs on $20 billion of exports to the U.S., or about 5.2 percent of the $383 billion worth of goods the U.S. imported from Canada in 2025, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Of that total, about $39.3 billion was agricu...
From WPI Consulting
Accountability and a comprehensive approach to export programming
WPI’s team helped construct a strategic approach to develop, implement, and track promotional activities in 8 key regions across the globe for an agricultural export association. With continued progress measurement and strategic advisory services from WPI, the association has seen its ROI from investments in promotional programming increase by 44 percent over the past 5 years. Not only does this type of holistic approach to organizational strategy provide measurable results to track and analyze, it fosters top-down and bottom-up organizational accountability.