General Comments Volatility reigned in grain and soy futures trade as the market exhibits an increasing nervousness over USDA's acreage and stocks reports amid what is already a full-blown weather market. The weather outlook for the next two weeks remains as bleak as ever in terms of relief for drought-stricken crops. Most briefly, the outlook is for two weeks of above-normal temperatures and below-normal rainfall for most of the Midwest and Delta. In other words, it is more of the same. Temperatures in Central Illinois and Indiana of 100 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday and Friday will continue to stress crops. High pressure is planted across the U.S. from the Oklahoma Panhandle to the coastal Carolinas, and it appears it will hang around...
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.