General Comments Minutes of the Federal Reserve Bank's August Federal Open Market Committee (FMOC) meeting were released today, and they show a growing tilt toward some sort of action to stimulate the sputtering U.S. economy. If there is not a quick improvement, the Fed will need to take action "fairly soon." Many Fed watchers are interpreting this language to mean that absent some unexpected economic growth that shrinks unemployment, the Fed will decide to take action at the FMOC's next meeting in mid-September. What that action might be is a question, but the most likely choice seems to be another round of bond buying, a QE-3, which would effectively print new money to be pumped into the economy. The wording of the minutes is being int...
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.