The "winds of change" swept through the pits in Chicago on Wednesday morning, 15 September 1999. According to WPI's Gregg Doud: In reality, there was very little new fundamental news in this market save the continuing reports of better yield reports from the combine seats of the Corn Belt for both corn and soybeans. The word is out that farmers are being routinely and pleasantly surprised by what is coming in the combine bin. The pit is now said to be thinking of a corn number greater than 9.4 billion bushels and wondering if a 9.5-billion-bushel figure is in the making. For beans, it's now 2.775 billion bushels and possibly growing to the 2.8-billion-bushel mark. This is a marked change in these traders' psychology from the last two mon...
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...
Key Market Insights Geopolitical Limbo: Geopolitical risk remained a key driver across global commodity markets today. President Trump stated that the Iran memorandum of understanding is not yet final and warned that military action could resume if negotiations fail. Both sides continue w...
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.