When USDA lowered its production estimates for 2015 corn and soybeans today, it caught managed money funds leaning the wrong way. Wheat markets were dominated by noncommercial short covering in response to the surprisingly small estimate of the winter wheat acreage planted last fall. General Comments The grain and soy markets treaded water ahead of the release of USDA’s reports at 12 p.m. (EST) with only minor price changes overnight and early in the day session. After weeks of waiting, however, markets finally found something to trade on once they were issued. There was widespread surprise when USDA reduced estimated harvested acreage, national average yields and 2015 production for U.S. corn and soybeans. Following its initial productio...
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.