Overnight trade found corn and wheat futures in a mild retreat from yesterday’s big gains, while soybeans were quietly higher. Trading volume was rather light. China and much of Europe will celebrate their May Day holiday tomorrow through Monday. Word that Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Lighthizer are expected to meet with Chinese officials in Beijing as quickly as next Tuesday generated enough hope of progress on the trade disputes to keep a bid under soybeans. However, that hope faded away during the day session as exporters reported that Chinese inspectors have begun to survey arriving cargoes of U.S. soybeans especially closely in recent days. It is reported that one soybean cargo is being held up from d...
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.