Long ago an old trader friend once told us that predicting the future is a harmless game unless one actually bets real money on his predictions. After all, he said, futures markets are nothing more than predictions about the future, and look how many people lose money betting on those predictions. Of course, his comments were made before funds and technical analyses were as prominent as they are today. Nevertheless, what he said way back then still retains some truth today. We occasionally play the harmless game of predicting the future, but we seldom bet money on our predictions. And when we do, it usually involves very little money and the outcome of a football game.In recent years we have taken the occasion of the New Year to make ad h...
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.