The CBOT rallied sharply Tuesday with news that the Biden Administration will allow E15 ethanol use, news which buoyed corn futures. The Biden Administration broke with the Democrats’ typical ambivalence or distain towards ethanol and announced it will allow higher ethanol blend rates into gasoline to help fight rising fuel costs. The directive will permit E15 (15 percent blended ethanol) sales across the U.S. in time for the seasonal summer driving increase. Funds remained net buyers for the day with brokers estimating managed money traders added 6,000 contracts to their wheat positions and bought 10,000 contracts of corn. Funds were more cautious in soybeans and yesterday’s open interest data suggests short positioning...
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.