Shutdown As both parties attempt to shift blame on the federal government shutdown, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) is considering going back to the strategy he used to get the farm bill and the nutrition-only bill through the House – craft narrowly drafted appropriations bills (like splitting the farm and nutrition bills) and pass them with Republican votes only to get to the measures before the Democratic majority-controlled Senate. That process could start this weekend and the bills would be targeted to key issues. To date, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) has refused to appoint conferees on the continuing resolution measures sent by the House, because the various versions contain language to reform or def...
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 €...
Key Takeaways: Dry bulk markets are mixed with Capesize rates seeing solid gains while Panamax values slipped on a growing tonnage list. Supramax and Handysize vessels were stronger, though all sectors remain vulnerable to the seasonal dip in rates through Q4 and into Q1. Falling water l...
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.