General Comments The trading pattern of the markets was reversed from the recent "norm" last night and today. That might have been a slight disturbance in the "force." Instead of opening higher and trading strong overnight followed by a collapse during the day, markets opened very weak last night following Friday's major sell-off, but then did a 180 and moved to sharply higher levels led by soybean futures. March soybean futures did drop back to within a penny of Friday's low at $13.56 (which was also the harvest low) and markets had a very back-and-forth trade today, but they finished well off the lows and very strong.There was no single event or news item that caused the turnaround. The markets were and still are oversold technically,...
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.