General Comments Prior to the 11 January reports from USDA, grain and soy markets slumped because of a sense that prices had already gone high enough, that the long bull market was over, and that liquidation of long positions mostly held by non-commercials had taken over as the market's main driver. USDA's reports abruptly changed all of that. Grain and soybean supplies were lower than expected, especially so in the case of corn. Export demand for corn and wheat had been slow, but less visible domestic demand was more than making up for slack exports. The very brisk export and domestic demand soybeans were experiencing was old news, and the looming monster South American crop would inevitably limit demand for U.S. soybeans and products.I...
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.