General Comments For the first time ever, grain and soy futures markets were trading this morning (both electronic and pit) when USDA released a major report: the June WASDE. We can report that the world did not come to an end. Not so many years ago such an overlap would have been viewed as unthinkable. That it did happen and will continue to happen in the future is a sign of how pervasive future markets have become. Now pit trading will open early on report days so it too will be trading as reports are released.Speaking of market timing, unless the CFTC objects, the CME plans to change the closing time for open outcry pit trading from 1:15 p.m. CT to 2:00 p.m. CT to match the time that electronic trading closes for three hours. This sho...
Key Takeaways: President Trump announced $8 billion in additional agricultural assistance through the Harvest Fuel Relief Program, as USDA projects farm fuel and oil expenses will increase 28.8 percent in 2026. The package follows $12 billion in earlier relief, while government farm payments w...
Key Takeaways: A student group from the University of Chicago is protesting to bring back onion futures trading. Trading in onion futures was banned in 1958 following a spectacular bout of market manipulation that resulted in a corner of the physical market. The ban on onion futures led t...
Beef packer margins deteriorated to $141/head last week, down $55 from the prior week as fed cattle prices strengthened while the Choice cutout remained nearly unchanged. The cutout held near $373/cwt while fed cattle prices climbed $4/cwt to $224/cwt, narrowing processor profits. Despite the d...
From WPI Consulting
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.