More to Come Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would not invade Ukraine and there was a whole dialogue around the meaning of invasion versus incursion, and the limits of responses to nuanced aggressions. Commodity markets reacted today based on future price impacts, and the rally looks like an expectation that Moscow will not settle for mere control of the Donbas. This was made clear by the speech yesterday by Vladimir Putin, which was filled with grievances that can only be resolved by bringing Ukraine back into the Russian fold. Once he has control of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, grain can still flow but aggrieved Ukrainians may not feel the same ambition for producing buffer crops. The Biden Administration continues to attack...
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.