No Big Surprises for Soy in WASDE Report Today's USDA world supply and demand estimates report contained no big surprises for soybeans and soybean products. If there was a surprise, it was that USDA reduced its forecasts for South American soybean production to levels close to what the trade was estimating. USDA reduced its forecast for the Argentine crop from 46.5 MMT to 45 MMT. It cut its forecast for the Brazilian crop to 66.0 MMT from its March forecast of 69.5 MMT. The forecast for Paraguay's 2012 soybean crop was reduced from 5 MMT to 4.2 MMT. Global soybean production was reduced to 240.15 MMT from the March estimate of 245.065 MMT.USDA raised its forecast for U.S. soybean exports and crush by 15 million bushels each to 1.29 billi...
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 €...
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.