The theory that commodities were a useful tool for anyone seeking to diversify an investment portfolio gained considerable popularity in the early years of the 21st century. This was based on studies indicating that commodity and equity prices often moved in opposite directions. The viability of commodities as investments was supported at the time by some well-known academic economists. That theory has not stood up very well in more recent years, and who would want to diversify their investments during the U.S. stock market’s multi-year bullish run by buying the short-term risks posed by commodity markets? In hindsight, during most of the years since the U.S. economic recovery slowly got underway, it would have been far better to hav...
Key Takeaways: Total U.S. crop acres (excluding hay) are forecast to expand fractionally this year due to greater oilseed crop and winter wheat plantings. One of the key drivers of this year’s crop outlook is input costs, and crops with a lower cost profile have an advantage in producers...
Soybeans Market Overview After many weeks of almost no activity in Brazil and little activity in the U.S., this week kicked off with a lot of activity in the U.S. soybean market. Once again, the sole buyer was Sinograin/Cofco, acting on behalf of the Chinese Federal Reserve, which purchased a t...
What You Need to Know Today: Crude oil prices extended their rally today, supported by several developments, including escalating Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabian oil infrastructure and growing concerns about supply disruptions. The Trump administration is reportedly preparing to remove 50 perc...
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.