World Perspectives

What to Make of the January Jobs Report

Last Friday the Labor Department released a shocker of a jobs report: 517,000 new jobs created in January. The pre-report consensus was 188,000 jobs. Unemployment was 3.4 percent, the lowest in more than 50 years. The number was a surprise because it came after a barrage of headlines about massive layoffs in the tech sector, which probably says something about the number of actual jobs in the tech sector.   There is a lot to digest from this jobs report. First, anecdotally, many of the tech layoffs were from jobs added during the COVID era when tech was booming (zoom calls, virtual conferences, on-line shopping, etc.). Now things are getting back to more “normal” – airlines are flying, hotels are full, restaura...

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Market Commentary: Cattle Retreat on Import News; Corn Posts New Lows on Midwest Rains

With the June Acreage and Grain Stocks reports past, the CBOT resumed trading its favorite variable for the peak of summer – weather. For Tuesday’s trade, this meant a focus on five-year highs in corn ratings and an excellent outlook for the crop into mid-July at least, which were t...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Sep 25 Corn closed at $4.06/bushel, down $0.0325 from yesterday's close.  Sep 25 Wheat closed at $5.49/bushel, up $0.1075 from yesterday's close.  Nov 25 Soybeans closed at $10.2725/bushel, up $0.0025 from yesterday's close.  Dec 25 Soymeal closed at $287.6/short ton, down $1.7 f...

livestock

Feeder Cattle Import Update

As summer demand for beef is upon us, fed cattle hit $233 per cwt yesterday, having moved above $200 per cwt in April on tight supplies. The cattle herd as of 1 January was the smallest in more than 50 years, imports of feeder cattle from Mexico have been suspended due to the New World Screwwor...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Cattle Retreat on Import News; Corn Posts New Lows on Midwest Rains

With the June Acreage and Grain Stocks reports past, the CBOT resumed trading its favorite variable for the peak of summer – weather. For Tuesday’s trade, this meant a focus on five-year highs in corn ratings and an excellent outlook for the crop into mid-July at least, which were t...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Sep 25 Corn closed at $4.06/bushel, down $0.0325 from yesterday's close.  Sep 25 Wheat closed at $5.49/bushel, up $0.1075 from yesterday's close.  Nov 25 Soybeans closed at $10.2725/bushel, up $0.0025 from yesterday's close.  Dec 25 Soymeal closed at $287.6/short ton, down $1.7 f...

livestock

Feeder Cattle Import Update

As summer demand for beef is upon us, fed cattle hit $233 per cwt yesterday, having moved above $200 per cwt in April on tight supplies. The cattle herd as of 1 January was the smallest in more than 50 years, imports of feeder cattle from Mexico have been suspended due to the New World Screwwor...

Prop 12 Lives, Long Live Prop 12; Power of Ag; Trump Power

Prop 12 Lives, Long Live Prop 12 Delineating the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution from the rights of the states has long been a legal fight in the U.S. Thus, it was notable last night when the U.S. Senate voted 99-1 to remove language from the Big Beautiful Bill that would have restric...

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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.

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