Argentina’s Domestic Situation As has been widely reported, Argentine President Mauricio Macri lost last week’s primary election against the Alberto Fernandez/Cristina Kirchner dupla. While the presidential election will take place in October, the 15 percent margin of loss will be difficult to reverse. The market reacted by devaluating the peso 30 percent (from 45 to 58-60 ARS/USD), the country risk increased from 900 to 1,700 points, and interest rates climbed to 74 percent. Rumors, denials and different announcements caused significant volatility and uncertainty in the markets. At the end, the president announced many populist measures to win middle class votes and provide some financial ease after the currency devaluation t...
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.