Markets were choppy overnight with corn and wheat slightly lower as soybean futures traded 3-4 higher on light volume. That pattern changed at this morning’s opening. General Comments Markets were choppy overnight with corn and wheat slightly lower and soybeans higher. That pattern changed at this morning’s opening when everything turned decidedly lower. There wasn’t any fresh news around the grain markets, and anything bearish was related to energy and financial markets. January crude oil futures dropped below $36 a barrel (a seven-year low) on more long-term bearish supply news. The very warm, early North American winter is also bearish to energy consumption. Cheap and nervous energy markets spilled over into the equity markets as...
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.