To say that weather markets are unpredictable is to state the obvious, but today’s whipsaw price action carried that to an extreme. Soybean futures prices roared up and down a few times as funds tried to keep ahead of each weather model run today. General Comments To say that weather markets are unpredictable is to state the obvious, but today’s whipsaw price action carried that to an extreme. It also demonstrates another change from days gone by, that of computerized algorithmic trading programs that basically plug into weather model servers to catch and instantly trade on any changes between model runs. The algorithmic traders were hard at work beginning overnight and continuing during the day session, and they probably were largely res...
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...
Key Market Insights Geopolitical Limbo: Geopolitical risk remained a key driver across global commodity markets today. President Trump stated that the Iran memorandum of understanding is not yet final and warned that military action could resume if negotiations fail. Both sides continue w...
From WPI Consulting
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.