Purported Solutions: Members of Congress are reportedly getting an earful from constituents over the price of gasoline. Republicans are saying the solution is more supply via increased drilling and allowing construction of the XL pipeline. Democrats want to restrict exports of refined petroleum products and put restrictions on speculators. Some want President Obama to deny another term for CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler if he fails to restrict speculators.Supply and Demand: If consumers and politicians do not like today's oil prices, they will hate them going forward. Writing on "Prospects for the Oil Importing Nations," IDB researcher Ramon Espinasa sees no favorable structural change when it comes to petroleum. Demand by rich countries is f...
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.