The Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FMOC) was scheduled to meet on Wednesday of this week, but for the second time it took emergency action prior to the meeting. On Sunday, Chairman Jerome Powell announced a 100 basis point cut to the federal fund rate. This comes after the Fed announced an emergency 50 basis point rate cut on 3 March. That puts the rate in the range of 0 to 0.25 percent, to where it was lowered in 2008 and stayed until the end of 2015. In his statement Powell generally ruled out negative interest rates like Japan and Europe have had. Back in the fall of 2019, President Trump tweeted several times that the Fed should adopt negative interest rates, or at least get down to zero rates so that the...
What You Need to Know Today: U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent said Friday that the U.S. has seized $1b of Iranian crypto assets. Iran’s IGGC says 15 merchant vessels, including 4 oil tankers, have passed through the Strait of Hormuz in the past 24 hours. Managed money traders...
Developer's Note: Last year, users pointed out differences between the 5-year averages reported in this app and what USDA estimates in its weekly report. The difference exists because WPI calculates average based on the last 5 years of observations for the current week. In cases where obs...
Game of Chicken The U.S. and Mexico just completed an initial round of bilateral negotiations leading up to completing a joint review of the U.S. Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA). A second round is scheduled for June 16-17 in Washington and will include agriculture as a key agenda item. A third...
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.