General Comments Markets had plenty to trade on today. There were the pro forma encouraging statements from the G-20 meeting in Mexico that eurozone leaders would do whatever is necessary to keep the zone together and afloat. G-20 leaders are united in their efforts to promote economic growth and job creation -- details to follow. Interestingly, European leaders pressed U.S. President Barack Obama to promise that the U.S. would not allow its debt and fiscal problems to pull down Europe. Greece still has not formed a government after Sunday's election saw the pro-euro party win the most seats in parliament, but not a majority. However, some key politicians expressed hope that some kind of coalition could be cobbled together by Wednesday.S...
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.