The awaited reports on 2018 quarterly stocks and winter wheat acreage along with the January 2018 WASDE have come and gone. Given the broad spectrum of data presented, they have a bit of history in terms of generating market-moving surprises. On balance, though, last Friday’s release seemed to be about as unsurprising as such a wide array of data on a variety of subjects could be. This is not to say that the reports turned out to be exactly what the market expected. USDA’s estimated total winter wheat planted acreage was 32.6 million acres, lower than last year’s final number. While that was only 100,000 acres less, the trade’s average guess was more than 1 million acres below USDA’s estimate. In the wheat cla...
What You Need to Know Today: After a period of limited activity, USDA reported a sizeable 613 KMT in soybean export sales, including 330 KMT to China and 283 KMT to unknown destinations, potentially also China. The purchases represent a meaningful pickup in demand and bring China closer to ful...
Key Takeaways: Consumer spending is a key driver of the U.S. economy, and the latest retail sales data indicate that spending remains robust despite inflation. In September, total retail and food service sales rose more than 6 percent year-over-year, with food service spending up 7 percent and...
The Trump import plan for 300,000 MT of beef supplies used for ground beef, i.e., lean trim, from September through November has, according to Secretary Brooke Rollins, brought some relief to beef prices. The Executive Order states that the Secretary of Agriculture will analyze and review the m...
From WPI Consulting
Accountability and a comprehensive approach to export programming
WPI’s team helped construct a strategic approach to develop, implement, and track promotional activities in 8 key regions across the globe for an agricultural export association. With continued progress measurement and strategic advisory services from WPI, the association has seen its ROI from investments in promotional programming increase by 44 percent over the past 5 years. Not only does this type of holistic approach to organizational strategy provide measurable results to track and analyze, it fosters top-down and bottom-up organizational accountability.