Weather has not been friendly to world wheat production so far in 2012. Dry conditions have impacted wheat crops in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Western Europe, and they are now threatening the yield potential in Western Australia and, to a lesser extent, eastern Australia. The U.S. winter wheat crop, although still very good, will be less than reflected in the May USDA estimates because of the hot and dry weather in the Southern Plains when the crop matured. Bob Kohlmeyer took a good look at the potential U.S. wheat outlook in his Tuesday analysis. The table below is a preliminary look at where we think world wheat production could fall in 2012.Note that our world wheat production forecast of 660 MMT is far below the May USDA estimate...
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.