General Comments China is on holiday and market conditions are similar to when parents are gone or when the boss is out of the office: the market is free to trade whatever it decides. Certainly, the lifting of long positions in the November soybean contract has not been the smoothest of operations. That likely occurred because just a short time ago many holders of long positions were confidently expecting to sell back their positions at much higher prices. Once prices start selling off, there was a natural reluctance to get out. When October arrived, traders were then forced to reduce positions at whatever the price level. And so prices continue to sell off even though the inverted pricing structure of the contracts reflects strong deman...
What You Need to Know Today: U.S. weather is getting more attention this week as conditions vary greatly across the western, central, and eastern corn belts, with the different regions battling dryness and too much rain simultaneously. The ProFarmer Crop Tour began today in Indiana and Nebrask...
Key Takeaways: Argentina is on pace for a record corn crop and record exports in the current marketing year, with abundant supplies likely to keep the country highly competitive in global export markets. Argentina’s record exportable surplus is allowing it to offer highly competitive pri...
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.