USDA reports for August 2019: U.S. oilseed production is projected at 111.5 million tons, down 4.5 million from last month mainly due to a lower soybean production forecast. Soybean production is forecast at 3.68 billion bushels, down 165 million on lower harvested area. Harvested area is forecast at 75.9 million acres, down 3.4 million from the NASS June Acreage Report led by reductions for Ohio and South Dakota. These States account for almost half of the national reduction. The first survey-based soybean yield forecast of 48.5 bushels per acre is unchanged from last month but 3.1 bushels below last year’s level. With lower production partly offset by higher beginning stocks, soybean supplies for 2019/20 are projected at 4.77 billio...
What You Need to Know Today: Cattle futures extended their sharp selloff Friday as weakening cash cattle prices, deteriorating feedlot profitability, and reduced packer demand continued to weigh on the market. The inability of futures to sustain a rally following last week's bullish Cattle on...
As predicted, the Federal Reserve held rates steady at the last meeting before the midterm elections, likely in part because of the election (see WPI 19 October and 22 September). The decision comes at the tail end of a midterm election cycle that has been marked by the two parties campaigning...
Key Takeaways: WPI’s new EU rapeseed crushing margin models point to weaker processing returns over the next four months due to higher rapeseed procurement costs and weaker product values. Statistical forecasts call for German crushing margins to decline from €181/MT to €...
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.