Coercing Argentine Soy Sales It is no secret the Argentine economy is in bad shape and getting worse. The country has runaway inflation and a plunging currency mostly because of the failed socialist policies the current and past government have pursued to subsidize its supporters by penalizing its most productive sectors.The problem for the Argentine government now is that it is running out of money to fund its social programs. And, as usual, it has placed the blame on Argentina's farmers, who it says are hoarding part of their old crop soybeans rather than selling them into the export market. The government collects an export tax on soybeans of 35 percent, but it collects nothing if the country's farmers do not sell their soybeans. And...
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.