Policy Updates Argentina’s new government led by Javier Milei has begun and several new measures have been implemented. Despite being unpopular and restrictive, these measures promise to adjust the macroeconomic landscape over the coming months and eventually reduce inflation and free markets. The most significant measures include a strong devaluation of the official currency, which rose from 360 to 800 ARS/USD. This led to a decrease in the gap compared to financial dollars from over 150 percent to 30 percent. Imports will incur an additional 17 percent tax, while exports will have an exchange rate of 860 ARS/USD. There will no longer be government intervention in exports and public spending and subsidies will be reduced significan...
What You Need to Know Today: Markets got a surprise with a corn yield of 181.2 bushels/acre in the October WASDE, above the average estimate of 177.6 bushels/acre and up from USDA’s September estimate of 178.5 bushels/acre. Although stronger demand is expected to absorb some of the addit...
The USDA has lowered its 2026 red meat production forecasts slightly while forecasting a slight increase in broiler production. Beef is now projected at 24.802 billion pounds, 75 million pounds less than in September. Cow slaughter is expected to be up; however, this will be offset by lower ste...
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.