In the latest sequence of WPI’s weekly Smile! report, the biggest change is a massive increase in upside volatility for corn futures while soybean and wheat futures are more neutrally positioned. For background on the methodology used in this analysis, check out this article. Again, the goal of this weekly publication is to give you a quick view of how the market perceives price risk over the near term. We also include last week’s charts, so you can see how the risk has shifted week-to-week. Here are this week’s charts: Corn Despite the USDA’s bearish WASDE, options traders are positioning for higher corn prices. Open interest (OI) is overwhelmingly higher in OTM calls than puts with a put/ca...
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.