There is new economic data out showing that the economy is not destined for a recession (near term, anyway). The impact of increased interest rates may just delay a recessionary period until next year. Orders for durable goods were released today. Most categories were up, including metals, industrial machinery, computers and electronics, autos, and defense aircraft. Commercial aircraft orders were down. Overall, durable goods orders are above the pre-pandemic high of February 2020 – right before the COVID lockdowns. This is a positive trend for GDP growth. Technically, a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative growth. The Q1 GDP was down 1.5 percent, and right now, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s GDP &ldq...
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.