Profit taking and surprisingly good crop condition ratings sparked a sell-off at the CBOT today. The overnight session featured losses of 3 cents for corn, 5.75 cents for soybeans and 8 cents for SRW wheat. The day session featured more of the same with bears testing key technical points for grains futures. Higher meat values underpinned limit-up gains in the cattle markets today and lifted the hog markets as well. Funds have been exiting their long positions in these markets over the past several months and are now turning into bargain buyers. With the Cattle on Feed report neutral the cattle markets from a supply standpoint, meat demand will be the key driver going forward. As mentioned in yesterday’s Market Commentary (click here...
What You Need to Know Today: President Trump suspended the planned attacks on Iran and announced that the pieces for a framework for peace were in place in a weekend social media post. Iran, however, later said no efforts were underway to conduct negotiations with the U.S., though Oman indicat...
Key Takeaways: E15 expansion would support corn and ethanol demand by increasing domestic biofuel consumption and reducing reliance on petroleum-based fuels. Year-round E15 has gained bipartisan momentum, but the policy remains in legislative limbo as lawmakers continue to negotiate provisions...
From WPI Consulting
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.