Soybeans MARKET UPDATE Although lineups at Brazilian ports remain extremely long, the situation has improved somewhat this month. The waiting time at Paranagua has shorted from 60 days in March to around 50 days in April. Brazilian exporters generally have been accommodating their boats to the calculated waiting times; not many of them need to roll or swap contracts. In the past few weeks, several exporters were forced to renegotiate their FOB and CNF sales, either rolling positions from May to June or from LH April to May to reduce demurrage costs for FOB or to reduce extension costs for CNF. Some companies have proposed cargo swaps. This means giving up a spot cargo for a more deferred one and collecting some money for it, which helps...
What You Need to Know Today: Commodities were mostly lower across the board today after yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a potential interest rate hike later in 2026. The dollar index reached its highest level in over a year, and a strong dollar makes U.S. agricultural expor...
Tomorrow is the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the USDA, along with the rest of the federal government and the CME, will be closed, so the monthly Cattle on Feed report was released a day early. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity on 1 June amounted...
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.