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: 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...
From WPI Consulting
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.