USDA's May WASDE had a little something for everyone. The bears, especially those who have been liquidating long corn futures positions the last several days, must like USDA's 2012/13 corn outlook. They should also be relieved by the old crop 2011/12 corn numbers. The bulls should be happy with the U.S. soybean outlook for both old and new crops. Wheat bulls, if there are any, should be somewhat comforted by USDA's mildly supportive view of the 2012/13 wheat situation compared with bearish expectations.Following is a brief recap of some key features from today's WASDE:Some further details and comments: Corn One of the questions going into the report concerned how USDA would handle the apparently tightening old crop 2011/12 corn supplies...
Key Takeaways: President Trump announced $8 billion in additional agricultural assistance through the Harvest Fuel Relief Program, as USDA projects farm fuel and oil expenses will increase 28.8 percent in 2026. The package follows $12 billion in earlier relief, while government farm payments w...
Key Takeaways: A student group from the University of Chicago is protesting to bring back onion futures trading. Trading in onion futures was banned in 1958 following a spectacular bout of market manipulation that resulted in a corner of the physical market. The ban on onion futures led t...
Beef packer margins deteriorated to $141/head last week, down $55 from the prior week as fed cattle prices strengthened while the Choice cutout remained nearly unchanged. The cutout held near $373/cwt while fed cattle prices climbed $4/cwt to $224/cwt, narrowing processor profits. Despite the d...
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.