Market Commentary: Grains Retreat on Profit Taking, Tariff Talk; Cattle Hit $200 for First Time
Except for soymeal and the livestock markets, the CBOT was lower on Wednesday with traders booking profits and taking a more cautious approach after the recent runup in prices. Too, rhetoric out of the White House is keeping traders guessing on the possible application of and retaliation to var...
Transatlantic Tariffication; Biofuel Battles
Transatlantic Tariffication President Trump’s bromance with big tech billionaires has refocused his attention on Europe. The large penalties and regulatory hurdles being imposed by Brussels on America’s ANTMAMA (Apple, Nvidia, Tesla, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon) are being fram...
Global Wheat Dominance
Russia’s wheat supplies may be tighter, but it is still not out of the market. Egypt's state grain buyer, Mostakbal Misr, is said to have made a “significant” purchase of Russian wheat. The four shipments will be shipped on four vessels sailing under the Egyptian flag, which m...
Black Sea Regional Analysis
Russian Grain Markets: 13 – 17 January 2025 Last week, the market woke up from the prolonged Christmas holidays and surprisingly remained bullish against a stable export trend and high export duties. Growing duties may nip the bullish trend in the bud. Russian wheat can now freely go into...
Livestock Industry Margins
Livestock industry margins were decidedly mixed last week with diverging trends developing across the industry. Beef packer margins gained for the second straight week thanks to stronger beef prices that offset higher fed cattle prices, while feedlot margins dipped for both placements and close...
FOB Prices and Freight Rates App (Updated 22 January)
Ocean Freight Comments - 17 January 2025By Matt HerringtonIn the past month since WPI last provided our freight market commentary, dry bulk ocean freight rates have not done much at all. The holiday doldrums left markets to drift sideways/lower with slack cargo demand and little other excitemen...
Market Commentary: Grain Futures Surge as Dollar Slides
The first full day of the Trump Presidency saw CBOT grain futures surge as the U.S. dollar pulled back sharply. Corn, wheat, and soybeans all saw strong buying influences after the long U.S. holiday weekend with traders seeing bullish news from several points. The first point was President Trum...
Day One Trump Executive Orders
Shortly after his swearing-in as the 47th President of the United States, Donald Trump signed a slew of Executive Orders (EO) putting the wheels in motion for his policy agenda. EOs are signed, written, and published directives from the President regarding the operations of the federal governme...
Tariffs Hurt Ag, Help Oil?; Billionaire Farm Boy; Ignoring the Labels
Tariffs Hurt Ag, Help Oil? The President, aka “Tariff Man” pronounced at his inauguration that, “we will tariff and tax foreign countries.” However, the tariffs did not come on day one like some other policy changes. The warning is that, “tariffs delayed are not ta...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The CFTC report was in line with expectations again as it showed funds engaged in the expected buying in corn and across the soy complex. Perhaps the biggest feature of the report was funds’ exchange of a small net short in soybeans for a modest long of 58,000 contracts, after they bought...
Market Commentary: Market Gets a Bounce Ahead of Long Weekend
Commodity markets retraced some of the losses from Thursday, ending higher on Friday but not necessarily for the week. Corn is on a roll, nearing heights not seen in more than a year, but even cattle lost some of their bullish glow this week. 01172025MC_weeklychange.png 22.13 KBA key vect...
Martin Luther King Holiday
Please note that Monday, 20 January is a U.S. federal holiday in honor of the remarkable achievements of Martin Luther King, Jr. As a result, both the markets and World Perspectives, Inc. are closed that day. The next Ag Perspectives report will be published on Tuesday, 21 January. ...
Transitioning to Trump at USDA and in Congress
Monday is the Presidential Inaugural. This week has seen several Senate confirmation hearings on cabinet appointees. Both the Republicans and Democrats, Trump transition team, and Congress are prepping for the new Administration which will show up to work on Tuesday morning. &...
Political Sillies
No Introspection: Joe Biden’s farewell address appears to have been written by a 25-year-old at the socialist leaning People’s Policy Project. He claims historic success but warns the country will become an oligarchic dystopia. He warned about a “dangerous concentration of power” amidst “very f...
Cow-Calf Revenues Set Record in 2024, Profitability to Continue in 2025
The rally in feeder cattle and calf prices from September 2024 through mid-January 2025 provided cow-calf producers with near-record profitability for the 2024 calf crop. Higher prices for calves and feeder cattle, combined with record- or near-record high values for cull cows, pushed cow-calf...
Market Commentary: Give Us Our Daily Brake
Futures took a weather break today. The rain slated for Argentina and southern Brazil this weekend doesn’t appear monumental, but something is better than nothing, and something is all it takes to put brakes on a borderline market. The day’s trading closely tracked the overnight, with red showi...
Livestock Roundup: Food Inflation Driven by Proteins
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for December yesterday. For the month, the CPI was up 0.4 percent, while year-over-year it was up 2.9 percent. The core CPI – excluding energy and food – was up 3.2 percent, well above the Fed’s 2 percent target...
Oilseed Highlights: U.S. Crush Trends and Acreage Outlook
U.S. Soybean Crush Dynamics On Wednesday, National Association of Oilseed Processors (NOPA) said its members crushed an all-time record volume of soybeans of 206.6 Mbu, up 7 percent from November and up 5.7 percent from December 2023. Soyoil stocks came in at 1.24 billion pounds, which was...
Market Commentary: Grains Try to Establish Trading Ranges; Livestock Still Biased Upward
The CBOT was mixed at mid-week and mostly continued its consolidation after the recent WASDE-derived surprises. Corn futures pushed higher with stronger spread trade and players still watching the dryness in Argentina and slowly growing potential for a late start to the Brazilian safrinha plant...
Squeezing Russian Wheat; Save the Rats; Rollins Delayed
Squeezing Russia with WheatEurope is afraid that Donald Trump is ready to capitulate to Vladimir Putin next week when he becomes president. But Trump has appointed a fair number of geopolitical hawks to his team. He may see the war as senseless, but he doesn’t want to be perceived as a loser. R...
Black Sea Regional Analysis
Russian Grain Markets: 6 – 10 January 2025Traditionally during a prolonged holiday season, which in Russia does not coincide with the holiday season in most other countries because of the Russian Orthodox calendar, Russian grain trading volume is low. However, pricing forgot about the holiday s...
Market Commentary: Bulls Rest While Eyeing South American Weather
The CBOT turned mostly lower on Tuesday as the excitement from the bullish WASDE faded. Traders now see the corn and soybean yield and production cuts as fully priced into futures, which left markets to return to trading the South American weather outlooks and export trends. Both of these facto...
Produce Price Inflation Mixed Signals
Producer price inflation (PPI) ended 2024 up 0.2 percent in December. That is a modest gain and was below pre-report expectations. Nonetheless, the PPI was 3.3 higher than a year ago, and substantially higher than the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target. That stickiness trend will keep inflation...
Impacts on U.S. Ethanol Trade
Brazil is the second largest producer and use of ethanol after the U.S. The U.S. has an import tariff on ethanol of 2.5 percent ad valorem and has asked Brazil to reciprocate. Brazil maintains an import tariff of 11.75 percent on ethanol. Nonetheless, U.S. exports of ethanol have been on a mete...
Tariff Adjustment/Musk; Cynical Biden Trade Goals; Biofuel Proposal Disappoints
Tariff Adjustment /MuskRecognizing the inflation threat of sudden and large import tariffs, Donald Trump’s economic team: Scott Bessent (Treasury), Kevin Hassett (National Economic Council), and Stephen Miran (Council of Economic Advisers) are reportedly working on a plan of more gradual 2-5 pe...
Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa Regional Analysis
MEDITERRANEAN/MIDDLE EAST/NORTH AFRICA/AFRICA – MEA REGIONSyria has been added to Ukraine’s list of countries eligible for assistance under the “Grain from Ukraine” aid program – an initial shipment of 500 MT of wheat flour has been made to Syria by Ukraine.Ukraine expanded its “Grain from Ukra...
Livestock Industry Margins
Livestock industry margins were broadly higher last week with the one exception being placement margins for feedlots and closeout margins for farrow-to-finish hog operations. Higher feeder animal costs drove expected margins for last week’s feeder cattle placements lower, with profits for the i...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
There were really no surprises in this week’s CFTC report, which was delayed one day due to the national day of mourning for President Carter, as funds’ activity matched up with expectations and general market direction. Note that the data, which captures funds’ positions through Tuesday, 7 Jan...
Market Commentary: CBOT Trying to Find New Ranges
The CBOT saw more bullish influences on Monday from Friday’s WASDE report in which USDA slashed the 2024 U.S. corn and soybean yields. After considering the numbers and implications over the weekend, traders decided there was enough demand for both products and, if USDA’s latest numbers are cor...
Coming Nominations Hearings
President-elect Trump’s inauguration is in one week. In the meantime, the Senate will soon start confirmation hearings on several of his cabinet nominees. Here’s a look at a few of those upcoming hearings.The Energy and Public Works Committee will consider the nomination of former Rep. Lee Zeld...
Greedflation’s Weaknesses; UPF Attack
Greedflation’s WeaknessesThe U.S. government is suing apartment owners for using RealPage software algorithms for setting rents. The grocery industry may be the next target of this assault. Critics charge RealPage of price fixing since its software optimizes what rental companies can charge. Be...
Noise as China Faces 2025
Trade WarPost the November U.S. election, the focus has been on preparing for an inevitable trade war with the U.S. China has increased government reserve stocks and increased imports from Brazil. Traders worked to get ahead of the new Trump tariffs with Chinese exports in December jumping 10.7...
Mercosur Regional Analysis
WheatWith week-on-week progress of 3.5 percentage points, Argentina’s wheat harvest has reached 98 percent of the area and is nearing completion. Total production is expected to reach approximately 18.5 MMT.Markets have shown few updates, and local wheat prices remain nearly unchanged. As a res...
European Market Analysis
Regional News Last week, the Balkans and Ukraine saw unseasonably warm weather with moderate rainfall while Russia saw cold weather with light precipitation. The current forecasts call for cooler temperatures in France and Spain, but warmth in the UK and from Poland eastward (with the exce...
Market Commentary: Big Bullish Whopper
This last trading day of the first full trading week of 2025 came in like a whimper and went out with a bang. The trading day started with a notably sub-par Export Sales report from USDA. New commitments for wheat, corn, and soybeans all hit a marketing year low for export sales last week...
45Z Tax Credit Preliminary Guidance Released; No GREET Model Yet
As WPI reported on 6 December, the Treasury Department had promised that the compliance regulations for the 45Z Clean Fuels Production credit would be released by the end of the Biden Administration, implying no later than 19 January, the day before President-elect Trump’s inauguration. T...
Market Commentary: Grains Retreat on Profit Taking, Tariff Talk; Cattle Hit $200 for First Time
Except for soymeal and the livestock markets, the CBOT was lower on Wednesday with traders booking profits and taking a more cautious approach after the recent runup in prices. Too, rhetoric out of the White House is keeping traders guessing on the possible application of and retaliation to var...
Transatlantic Tariffication; Biofuel Battles
Transatlantic Tariffication President Trump’s bromance with big tech billionaires has refocused his attention on Europe. The large penalties and regulatory hurdles being imposed by Brussels on America’s ANTMAMA (Apple, Nvidia, Tesla, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon) are being fram...
Global Wheat Dominance
Russia’s wheat supplies may be tighter, but it is still not out of the market. Egypt's state grain buyer, Mostakbal Misr, is said to have made a “significant” purchase of Russian wheat. The four shipments will be shipped on four vessels sailing under the Egyptian flag, which m...
Black Sea Regional Analysis
Russian Grain Markets: 13 – 17 January 2025 Last week, the market woke up from the prolonged Christmas holidays and surprisingly remained bullish against a stable export trend and high export duties. Growing duties may nip the bullish trend in the bud. Russian wheat can now freely go into...
Livestock Industry Margins
Livestock industry margins were decidedly mixed last week with diverging trends developing across the industry. Beef packer margins gained for the second straight week thanks to stronger beef prices that offset higher fed cattle prices, while feedlot margins dipped for both placements and close...
FOB Prices and Freight Rates App (Updated 22 January)
Ocean Freight Comments - 17 January 2025By Matt HerringtonIn the past month since WPI last provided our freight market commentary, dry bulk ocean freight rates have not done much at all. The holiday doldrums left markets to drift sideways/lower with slack cargo demand and little other excitemen...
Market Commentary: Grain Futures Surge as Dollar Slides
The first full day of the Trump Presidency saw CBOT grain futures surge as the U.S. dollar pulled back sharply. Corn, wheat, and soybeans all saw strong buying influences after the long U.S. holiday weekend with traders seeing bullish news from several points. The first point was President Trum...
Day One Trump Executive Orders
Shortly after his swearing-in as the 47th President of the United States, Donald Trump signed a slew of Executive Orders (EO) putting the wheels in motion for his policy agenda. EOs are signed, written, and published directives from the President regarding the operations of the federal governme...
Tariffs Hurt Ag, Help Oil?; Billionaire Farm Boy; Ignoring the Labels
Tariffs Hurt Ag, Help Oil? The President, aka “Tariff Man” pronounced at his inauguration that, “we will tariff and tax foreign countries.” However, the tariffs did not come on day one like some other policy changes. The warning is that, “tariffs delayed are not ta...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The CFTC report was in line with expectations again as it showed funds engaged in the expected buying in corn and across the soy complex. Perhaps the biggest feature of the report was funds’ exchange of a small net short in soybeans for a modest long of 58,000 contracts, after they bought...
Market Commentary: Market Gets a Bounce Ahead of Long Weekend
Commodity markets retraced some of the losses from Thursday, ending higher on Friday but not necessarily for the week. Corn is on a roll, nearing heights not seen in more than a year, but even cattle lost some of their bullish glow this week. 01172025MC_weeklychange.png 22.13 KBA key vect...
Martin Luther King Holiday
Please note that Monday, 20 January is a U.S. federal holiday in honor of the remarkable achievements of Martin Luther King, Jr. As a result, both the markets and World Perspectives, Inc. are closed that day. The next Ag Perspectives report will be published on Tuesday, 21 January. ...
Transitioning to Trump at USDA and in Congress
Monday is the Presidential Inaugural. This week has seen several Senate confirmation hearings on cabinet appointees. Both the Republicans and Democrats, Trump transition team, and Congress are prepping for the new Administration which will show up to work on Tuesday morning. &...
Political Sillies
No Introspection: Joe Biden’s farewell address appears to have been written by a 25-year-old at the socialist leaning People’s Policy Project. He claims historic success but warns the country will become an oligarchic dystopia. He warned about a “dangerous concentration of power” amidst “very f...
Cow-Calf Revenues Set Record in 2024, Profitability to Continue in 2025
The rally in feeder cattle and calf prices from September 2024 through mid-January 2025 provided cow-calf producers with near-record profitability for the 2024 calf crop. Higher prices for calves and feeder cattle, combined with record- or near-record high values for cull cows, pushed cow-calf...
Market Commentary: Give Us Our Daily Brake
Futures took a weather break today. The rain slated for Argentina and southern Brazil this weekend doesn’t appear monumental, but something is better than nothing, and something is all it takes to put brakes on a borderline market. The day’s trading closely tracked the overnight, with red showi...
Livestock Roundup: Food Inflation Driven by Proteins
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for December yesterday. For the month, the CPI was up 0.4 percent, while year-over-year it was up 2.9 percent. The core CPI – excluding energy and food – was up 3.2 percent, well above the Fed’s 2 percent target...
Oilseed Highlights: U.S. Crush Trends and Acreage Outlook
U.S. Soybean Crush Dynamics On Wednesday, National Association of Oilseed Processors (NOPA) said its members crushed an all-time record volume of soybeans of 206.6 Mbu, up 7 percent from November and up 5.7 percent from December 2023. Soyoil stocks came in at 1.24 billion pounds, which was...
Market Commentary: Grains Try to Establish Trading Ranges; Livestock Still Biased Upward
The CBOT was mixed at mid-week and mostly continued its consolidation after the recent WASDE-derived surprises. Corn futures pushed higher with stronger spread trade and players still watching the dryness in Argentina and slowly growing potential for a late start to the Brazilian safrinha plant...
Squeezing Russian Wheat; Save the Rats; Rollins Delayed
Squeezing Russia with WheatEurope is afraid that Donald Trump is ready to capitulate to Vladimir Putin next week when he becomes president. But Trump has appointed a fair number of geopolitical hawks to his team. He may see the war as senseless, but he doesn’t want to be perceived as a loser. R...
Black Sea Regional Analysis
Russian Grain Markets: 6 – 10 January 2025Traditionally during a prolonged holiday season, which in Russia does not coincide with the holiday season in most other countries because of the Russian Orthodox calendar, Russian grain trading volume is low. However, pricing forgot about the holiday s...
Market Commentary: Bulls Rest While Eyeing South American Weather
The CBOT turned mostly lower on Tuesday as the excitement from the bullish WASDE faded. Traders now see the corn and soybean yield and production cuts as fully priced into futures, which left markets to return to trading the South American weather outlooks and export trends. Both of these facto...
Produce Price Inflation Mixed Signals
Producer price inflation (PPI) ended 2024 up 0.2 percent in December. That is a modest gain and was below pre-report expectations. Nonetheless, the PPI was 3.3 higher than a year ago, and substantially higher than the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target. That stickiness trend will keep inflation...
Impacts on U.S. Ethanol Trade
Brazil is the second largest producer and use of ethanol after the U.S. The U.S. has an import tariff on ethanol of 2.5 percent ad valorem and has asked Brazil to reciprocate. Brazil maintains an import tariff of 11.75 percent on ethanol. Nonetheless, U.S. exports of ethanol have been on a mete...
Tariff Adjustment/Musk; Cynical Biden Trade Goals; Biofuel Proposal Disappoints
Tariff Adjustment /MuskRecognizing the inflation threat of sudden and large import tariffs, Donald Trump’s economic team: Scott Bessent (Treasury), Kevin Hassett (National Economic Council), and Stephen Miran (Council of Economic Advisers) are reportedly working on a plan of more gradual 2-5 pe...
Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa Regional Analysis
MEDITERRANEAN/MIDDLE EAST/NORTH AFRICA/AFRICA – MEA REGIONSyria has been added to Ukraine’s list of countries eligible for assistance under the “Grain from Ukraine” aid program – an initial shipment of 500 MT of wheat flour has been made to Syria by Ukraine.Ukraine expanded its “Grain from Ukra...
Livestock Industry Margins
Livestock industry margins were broadly higher last week with the one exception being placement margins for feedlots and closeout margins for farrow-to-finish hog operations. Higher feeder animal costs drove expected margins for last week’s feeder cattle placements lower, with profits for the i...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
There were really no surprises in this week’s CFTC report, which was delayed one day due to the national day of mourning for President Carter, as funds’ activity matched up with expectations and general market direction. Note that the data, which captures funds’ positions through Tuesday, 7 Jan...
Market Commentary: CBOT Trying to Find New Ranges
The CBOT saw more bullish influences on Monday from Friday’s WASDE report in which USDA slashed the 2024 U.S. corn and soybean yields. After considering the numbers and implications over the weekend, traders decided there was enough demand for both products and, if USDA’s latest numbers are cor...
Coming Nominations Hearings
President-elect Trump’s inauguration is in one week. In the meantime, the Senate will soon start confirmation hearings on several of his cabinet nominees. Here’s a look at a few of those upcoming hearings.The Energy and Public Works Committee will consider the nomination of former Rep. Lee Zeld...
Greedflation’s Weaknesses; UPF Attack
Greedflation’s WeaknessesThe U.S. government is suing apartment owners for using RealPage software algorithms for setting rents. The grocery industry may be the next target of this assault. Critics charge RealPage of price fixing since its software optimizes what rental companies can charge. Be...
Noise as China Faces 2025
Trade WarPost the November U.S. election, the focus has been on preparing for an inevitable trade war with the U.S. China has increased government reserve stocks and increased imports from Brazil. Traders worked to get ahead of the new Trump tariffs with Chinese exports in December jumping 10.7...
Mercosur Regional Analysis
WheatWith week-on-week progress of 3.5 percentage points, Argentina’s wheat harvest has reached 98 percent of the area and is nearing completion. Total production is expected to reach approximately 18.5 MMT.Markets have shown few updates, and local wheat prices remain nearly unchanged. As a res...
European Market Analysis
Regional News Last week, the Balkans and Ukraine saw unseasonably warm weather with moderate rainfall while Russia saw cold weather with light precipitation. The current forecasts call for cooler temperatures in France and Spain, but warmth in the UK and from Poland eastward (with the exce...
Market Commentary: Big Bullish Whopper
This last trading day of the first full trading week of 2025 came in like a whimper and went out with a bang. The trading day started with a notably sub-par Export Sales report from USDA. New commitments for wheat, corn, and soybeans all hit a marketing year low for export sales last week...
45Z Tax Credit Preliminary Guidance Released; No GREET Model Yet
As WPI reported on 6 December, the Treasury Department had promised that the compliance regulations for the 45Z Clean Fuels Production credit would be released by the end of the Biden Administration, implying no later than 19 January, the day before President-elect Trump’s inauguration. T...