The Volcker Rule's prohibition on proprietary trading by banks will directly affect today's derivative markets. A number of major banks have already closed down their commodity trading activities or are in the process of doing so.Throughout U.S. history, banks and the banking industry have always been unpopular in varying degrees. That unpopularity soars during periods of financial and economic stress since banks are always tagged with some of the blame for the turmoil. In the wake of the market crash of 1929 and the subsequent depression, Congress in 1933 passed a new Banking Act to further regulate the banking industry. Included in this were provisions referred to as Glass-Steagall, named after the authors, Senator Carter Glass (D-VA) and...
As predicted, the Federal Reserve held rates steady at the last meeting before the midterm elections, likely in part because of the election (see WPI 19 October and 22 September). The decision comes at the tail end of a midterm election cycle that has been marked by the two parties campaigning...
Key Takeaways: The tariff burden rose sharply in 2025 and 2026: the effective rate on imports in HTS Chapters 1–24 increased from 1.53 percent in 2024 to 6.11 percent in 2025, before averaging 5.68 percent in January–August 2026. Headline rates tell only part of the story: exemptio...
Markets are getting into the Halloween spirit, handing out more tricks than treats. There has been some encouraging news, but it hasn’t been enough to slow the broader slide. Now buyers need to show up with something other than another “Charlie Brown” rock for the bag. Somethi...
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.