The day session produced a bias toward lower prices, although nothing remotely close to a market collapse. Soybean futures prices were off about 17 cents at their lows, but they recovered with July soybeans closing up 1.25 cents as the November contract closed 5.5 cents lower. General Comments To the surprise of no one, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank announced at the close of its April meeting today that it would leave its interest rate unchanged. Analysts hoped that the Fed’s post-meeting statement would provide clues about the chances of a rate increase at its next meeting in June. However, its carefully worded release gave no clue about what might be expected at its next meeting even though its tone was somewhat more positive than it wa...
Accountability and a comprehensive approach to export programming
WPI’s team helped construct a strategic approach to develop, implement, and track promotional activities in 8 key regions across the globe for an agricultural export association. With continued progress measurement and strategic advisory services from WPI, the association has seen its ROI from investments in promotional programming increase by 44 percent over the past 5 years. Not only does this type of holistic approach to organizational strategy provide measurable results to track and analyze, it fosters top-down and bottom-up organizational accountability.
What You Need to Know Today: A third U.S. border crossing (Columbus, New Mexico) has reopened to Mexican cattle imports following nearly two years of restrictions related to New World screwworm. The reopening could gradually improve feeder cattle availability, although more than 60 confi...
Yesterday, the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) released a new report of negotiated cash purchases of cattle under the mandatory price report. The report included Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. The goal of the report was to solve the confidentiality issues e...
Key Takeaways: U.S. soybean crushing began in 1911 and saw its most rapid expansion during the 1930s amid the broader agricultural and technology revolutions of the time. After peaking in the early 2000s, the soybean crushing industry went through a downturn as poor crush margins forced...