USDA's larger-than-expected spring wheat production estimate caught the market by surprise. Meanwhile, corn tagged along with the strong soybean market. General Comments Today was USDA report day, the end of the month and the end of the quarter. Grain and oilseed markets were generally softer overnight and ahead of this morning’s release of USDA’s quarterly stocks estimates and annual small grains summary. We are also of course about to head into the gut slot of the U.S. corn and soybean harvests. There just weren’t many reasons for anyone to get very brave buying or selling ahead of the reports and a harvest weekend.The quarterly stocks report was slightly bullish soybeans, at least not negative for corn and slightly bearish for wheat. T...
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.