The traditional speculative trading funds are now holding a major short position in wheat (near a record) and have exited their long positions in corn and soybeans.Corn, soybean and wheat futures all gapped lower this morning following the long 4th of July holiday weekend in the U.S. The only hope for higher openings was possible major changes in the weather forecasts, which didn't happen. There is no dome of doom or high pressure ridging in the atmosphere that can bring even above-normal temperatures to the U.S. Corn Belt. That means that at the least the first 50 percent of the U.S. corn crop is going to pollinate under very good conditions with plenty of moisture and no heat. This, of course, has many in the trade talking about a nationa...
Key Takeaways: Milk alone has not covered the full economic cost in any year since 2021: milk revenue fell short by $4.50, $2.15, $6.50, $1.27 and $2.34 per hundredweight in 2021 through 2025. Calf and cattle prices decided whether dairies cleared cost: cattle and other income lifted total rev...
Key Takeaways: Dry bulk markets are mixed with Capesize rates seeing solid gains while Panamax values slipped on a growing tonnage list. Supramax and Handysize vessels were stronger, though all sectors remain vulnerable to the seasonal dip in rates through Q4 and into Q1. Falling water l...
What You Need to Know Today: The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady at 3.75 to 4.0 percent Wednesday, with two officials dissenting in favor of a 25-basis-point increase. The Fed upgraded its assessment of economic growth from "solid" to "strong" but adopted a more patient approa...
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.