The wheat market was the loss leader again with old crop contracts of Chicago and KC wheat falling 11-12 cents to the lowest level in about five weeks. There was some selling of corn and wheat near the close by index funds as they rebalance. General Comments After today, only one-and-a-half days of trading remain before the important reports from USDA are released mid-session next Monday. Traders seem to be casting votes in favor of bearish reports as grain prices worked their way lower again, and today they were joined by soybean prices as well. The weakness of soybeans is notable, given that last week's soybean export sales volume was surprisingly large and especially considering it was a holiday week. Soybean futures dropped about 8 ce...
What You Need to Know Today: Russia rejected calls for a ceasefire in the Black Sea, including a proposal to halt attacks on civilian shipping that could help restore grain flows from Ukrainian ports. Tyson Foods announced plans to permanently close its Joslin, Illinois, beef processing facili...
The big news in the cattle markets yesterday was Tyson Foods’ move to close two more beef plants. One of them, the Joslin, Illinois, plant was shuttered immediately after the announcement. The other, in Eagle Mountain, Utah, is a case-ready plant that does not slaughter cattle. Tyson also...
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Wednesday. In July, the CPI rose 0.1 percent, seasonally adjusted, and rose 3.4 percent over the last 12 months, not seasonally adjusted. The index for all items less food and energy, or the “core” infla...
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.