The CBOT was mixed to close a week that has generally featured quiet or range-bound trade (except the soyoil market) with traders seemingly weighing their long-term outlooks amid conflicting weather and production signals. Wheat was lower on Friday with pressure coming from larger-than-expected...
There was little pushing the market one way or another today, other than a sense that things had been pushed high enough for now. The open was mostly higher but that softened not long after the open. The run-up in prices last week led to farmer selling, and so this was a third day of selling co...
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.