Marco Trends March Economic Data Points to Effects of Stimulus and ASF In response to a sharp economic slowdown and the ongoing impact of the trade war with the U.S., China launched a series of stimulative measures at the end of 2018. After a tepid January and February, the country’s economy seems to have roared back to life, particularly on the consumer front. The central government’s approach has featured a combination of tax cuts, more relaxed bank lending and stepped-up infrastructure spending. While loosening credit appears to fly in the face Beijing’s desire to reform its shadow banking sector and limit the rise of nonperforming loans, the tightening that began in mid-2016 has had a disproportionate impact on small...
What You Need to Know Today: Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva secured reelection on Sunday, defeating right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro despite trailing in the first round of voting. The surprise victory triggered a sharp selloff in Brazilian financial market...
The 2026 midterm elections are a week from tomorrow, but early voting has been taking place for weeks. At stake is control of Congress, including the House of Representatives, where all 435 seats are contested, and the Senate, where approximately one-third of the seats are up for election. Farm...
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...
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.