Surprisingly, wheat led the commodity complex higher today with soybeans a reluctant follower and corn futures unwilling to touch $3.55/bushel. U.S. stocks are higher with the Dow up 62 points and the S&P 500 gaining 14.6 as of this writing. The dollar is rebounding from its recent slide, adding 30 points today on the back of minutes from the Fed’s December meeting. The CBOE VIX index is down (again), hovering just above 9. Investors are apparently expecting a rosier 2018 and are consequently selling gold, with the lead COMEX contract down $1.60/ounce. Crude oil is higher with both WTI and Brent up roughly $1.30/barrel and both above $60. Corn March corn futures traded both sides of unchanged today in unexciting tr...
What You Need to Know Today: A third U.S. border crossing (Columbus, New Mexico) has reopened to Mexican cattle imports following nearly two years of restrictions related to New World screwworm. The reopening could gradually improve feeder cattle availability, although more than 60 confi...
Yesterday, the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) released a new report of negotiated cash purchases of cattle under the mandatory price report. The report included Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. The goal of the report was to solve the confidentiality issues e...
Key Takeaways: U.S. soybean crushing began in 1911 and saw its most rapid expansion during the 1930s amid the broader agricultural and technology revolutions of the time. After peaking in the early 2000s, the soybean crushing industry went through a downturn as poor crush margins forced...
From WPI Consulting
Accountability and a comprehensive approach to export programming
WPI’s team helped construct a strategic approach to develop, implement, and track promotional activities in 8 key regions across the globe for an agricultural export association. With continued progress measurement and strategic advisory services from WPI, the association has seen its ROI from investments in promotional programming increase by 44 percent over the past 5 years. Not only does this type of holistic approach to organizational strategy provide measurable results to track and analyze, it fosters top-down and bottom-up organizational accountability.