An article in The Wall Street Journal yesterday (14 May) discussed whether or not the long-running bull market in commodities is over. The writer, Liam Pleven, used the DJ-UBS index of prices for key commodities as the basis from which the question arises. The DJ-UBS Index, which tracks 19 key commodities and other popular commodity price indexes, suggest that commodities began a broad upward price move in early 1999. Commodity prices continued to move higher in an irregular pattern until 2008, when they abruptly collapsed along with the prices of nearly everything else as the U.S. economy lurched into a deep recession. The DJ-UBS index began to recover in 2009. That lasted until late 2011 when the Index turned down again.The question as...
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.