A stronger U.S. dollar, weaker crude oil, generally weaker world grain prices and chatter about the lack of world demand for grains and oilseeds all served to press on futures prices. General Comments China remains the underlying topic for financial and commodity markets, but questions and concerns about it come when developed countries are already seeing slow growth or, in some cases, no growth at all. This is also a time when the economies of key developing countries like Brazil and Russia have turned negative. The late session failure of the U.S. stock market to hold onto its earlier rally sent a negative signal to other markets overnight. The Shanghai Composite Index opened down about 4 percent, but it was able to recoup most of that...
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.
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...