U.S. stocks were slightly lower early in the day, but they recovered to show small gains as the Fed meeting finished. Neither anticipation of the Fed’s latest comment nor its aftermath had much impact on grain and soy futures markets. They again traded in low volume and relatively narrow ranges. General Comments The U.S. Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) concluded its January meeting today. Another rate increase was not expected so soon after December’s and hints of more to come in 2016. However, given China’s slowdown, the oil price implosion and all of the world economic and market turmoil since last month’s hike, markets were awaiting the Fed’s post-meeting statement for hints of any changes in its attitude and fut...
What You Need to Know Today: Commodities were mostly lower across the board today after yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a potential interest rate hike later in 2026. The dollar index reached its highest level in over a year, and a strong dollar makes U.S. agricultural expor...
Tomorrow is the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the USDA, along with the rest of the federal government and the CME, will be closed, so the monthly Cattle on Feed report was released a day early. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity on 1 June amounted...
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.