The big move at the CBOT Tuesday was a 1¾-cent gain in December corn futures – which isn’t much but that the development followed Monday’s bullish reversal is. The strength in new crop corn defies much of the fundamental outlook and suggests traders are sensing somethin...
First quarter global merchandise trade accelerated faster than expected as everyone expedited purchases ahead of tariffs and potential slowing of import demand. These market exchanges have likely remained accelerated ahead of the now 1 August tariff deadline, but increased costs were apparent i...
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the June CPI this morning. The CPI increased 0.3 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis in June, after rising 0.1 percent in May. The CPI is at its highest since January of this year. Over the last 12 months, the all-items index increased 2.7 percen...
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.