The CBOT started the day sharply lower as overnight selling pressured corn, wheat, and soybeans to double-digit losses. Yesterday’s day-session weakness created additional selling incentives overnight and funds booked profits on cue. After the overnight session was finished, charts were showing what was the best sign of tops/reversals forming in the major ag markets. The day session saw continued weakness in nearly every CBOT/CME market (except cattle) as funds were aggressive liquidators of their large long positions. Traders were buying unwinding long energies/short USD spreads, which firmed the U.S. dollar and further pressured ag commodities. USDA’s daily export sales announcement (see below) was supportive but largel...
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.