The price action of modern commodity futures markets reflects the differing needs and opinions of a great many participating traders. Commercial interests buy and sell futures mostly to protect against adverse price movements of their long or short positions in the underlying physical commodities with short positions often based on their future needs – anticipatory hedging. Speculators traditionally bought or sold futures based on their opinions about the directions that they expected (hoped) futures prices would take. And, there were “day traders” who scalped prices during daily trading sessions but went home without holding positions. Futures markets are now traded electronically, and futures market speculat...
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...
Tomorrow is the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the USDA, along with the rest of the federal government and the CME, will be closed, so the monthly Cattle on Feed report was released a day early. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity on 1 June amounted...
From WPI Consulting
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.