General Comments The markets today repeated the pattern of the past several sessions. They were all firm overnight led by 12- to 14-cent gains in soybeans, but were trading lower by the time the open outcry session opened. Trading volume actually appeared to be somewhat better than yesterday's. This morning's weekly Export Sales report showed much better-than-expected wheat sales, but disappointing corn and soybean export sales.The fiscal cliff fiasco continues to play out in Washington. The key parties apparently will meet later today. Financial markets were lower all day, reflecting the lack of confidence that anything meaningful will get done. Crude oil was unchanged today and the dollar was fractionally higher.The Mississippi River m...
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.