Noncommercial managed funds have held a large short position in wheat futures, mainly Chicago (SRW), in what seems like forever. The fund long position in wheat was estimated to be about 125,000 contracts at last count. Being short wheat futures for the long haul has been easy to rationalize. World wheat production has set a new record in each of the last several years and has grown notably faster than world use, which has resulted in ending world wheat stocks having their own string of new records. USDA’s latest estimate for those 2017/18 ending stocks is 268.4 MMT or 36 percent of use. U.S. wheat production has decreased more than 25 percent in the last three years, but estimated ending U.S. wheat stocks are still around the 1-billi...
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.