USDA's U.S. corn yield projection of 166 bushels per acre is in trouble. The simple fact is that it has not rained across much of the Corn Belt since late April/early May. Extended weather models have consistently shown a shift to a wetter weather pattern, but so far that pattern shift has been elusive. That was the case again this week when Tuesday's and Wednesday's models clearly showed the potential for heavy rains across the driest parts of the eastern Corn Belt next week. Those forecasts again changed significantly Wednesday night and Thursday morning to a much drier outlook. Last Monday's corn condition ratings dropped 6 percent from the good to excellent categories. The 2012 U.S. corn crop ratings are below last year's and will lik...
What You Need to Know Today: Cattle futures extended their sharp selloff Friday as weakening cash cattle prices, deteriorating feedlot profitability, and reduced packer demand continued to weigh on the market. The inability of futures to sustain a rally following last week's bullish Cattle on...
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: WPI’s new EU rapeseed crushing margin models point to weaker processing returns over the next four months due to higher rapeseed procurement costs and weaker product values. Statistical forecasts call for German crushing margins to decline from €181/MT to €...
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.