World Perspectives
feed-grains farm-inputs

Tough Time to Make a Profit

There’s no question that big profits were made during the boom times and balance sheets looked wonderful. The problem is that money is now going out the door at an alarming rate, and those balance sheets can change quickly in this environment.It was easy to make money in the grain business from about 2007 through 2014. Markets were always going up, and U.S. crop production was good except for the poor corn yield in 2012. We’ve often written that when prices are high, margins are also high. That was the case across the U.S. and world grain trade. Every level of agriculture from the producer through the suppliers, handlers, exporters, processors, etc. had great years. Of course big profits also allowed management to become sloppy, and budgets...

Related Articles
feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Trade Optimism Sparks Soy, Corn Rally

News that President Trump may be taking a more conciliatory stand towards China and that key leaders from Beijing and Washington are meeting to discuss the trade war emboldened funds on Monday. The soy complex was the upside leader with soybeans posting a bullish technical day as funds position...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Dec 25 Corn closed at $4.2325/bushel, up $0.0075 from yesterday's close.  Dec 25 Wheat closed at $5.0475/bushel, up $0.01 from yesterday's close.  Nov 25 Soybeans closed at $10.3175/bushel, up $0.1225 from yesterday's close.  Dec 25 Soymeal closed at $285/short ton, up $4 from ye...

livestock

Will Argentina Beef Imports Rescue High U.S. Beef Prices?

Last week, due to the coincidental timing of the deal with Argentina and elections coming there on 26 October and with Javier Milei being a close ally of President Trump, we speculated that Trump’s plan for lowering beef prices relied, at least in part, on Argentine imports. On Sunday, Tr...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Trade Optimism Sparks Soy, Corn Rally

News that President Trump may be taking a more conciliatory stand towards China and that key leaders from Beijing and Washington are meeting to discuss the trade war emboldened funds on Monday. The soy complex was the upside leader with soybeans posting a bullish technical day as funds position...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Dec 25 Corn closed at $4.2325/bushel, up $0.0075 from yesterday's close.  Dec 25 Wheat closed at $5.0475/bushel, up $0.01 from yesterday's close.  Nov 25 Soybeans closed at $10.3175/bushel, up $0.1225 from yesterday's close.  Dec 25 Soymeal closed at $285/short ton, up $4 from ye...

livestock

Will Argentina Beef Imports Rescue High U.S. Beef Prices?

Last week, due to the coincidental timing of the deal with Argentina and elections coming there on 26 October and with Javier Milei being a close ally of President Trump, we speculated that Trump’s plan for lowering beef prices relied, at least in part, on Argentine imports. On Sunday, Tr...

Ag Complexity; Some Get Disciplined; Vice Pays to Virtue

Ag Complexity President Trump hasn’t met a problem he doesn’t think he can solve, and that is a good thing, but it does run into the reality of systems complexity. His effort to help Argentina, a country with what he sees as sympatico political leanings and near collapse from debt i...

Image
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.

Search World Perspectives

Sign In to World Perspectives

Don’t have an account yet? Sign Up