CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
Eat less, Toot Less
Plants such as beans, lentils and chickpeas are the nutritional rage. They are plant derived foods with higher protein content and thus their production and consumption should be on the rise. But alas, the USDA data is not comporting with that nutritional advice. Over the past four years,...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
Based on futures’ price action late last week and early this week, one would be expecting funds to have been net sellers in the major ag commodities, and that’s exactly what happened. Funds expanded their short soybean position by some 30,000 contracts, making it a new five-year low...
An Era up in Smoke
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has proposed that anyone turning 15 years of age or younger in 2024 will be banned forever from purchasing cigarettes. Eash year, the age restriction will be raised by one year. The bill also makes vapes less appealing. The goal is to start the first generatio...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
Cocoa Puffs
The global cocoa price hit $10,120/MT yesterday, triple its price last fall, and it is still unlikely to be at its apex. The cause is a sharp drop-off in production in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, the two countries that produce nearly 65 percent of the world’s cocoa beans. Some ha...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
We All Scream
President Joe Biden is “bad talking” about the food industry, accusing it of greed for raising prices. While his focus was on “chips” and shrinkflation, he could also have talked about his favorite food, ice cream. After all, his generation – those over age 75, are...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
Peas Please
As noted in today’s Black Sea report, the price of peas in Russia are rising as exports go unfettered by any export tax. Canada is by far the largest exporter of peas with a two-thirds market share. But Russia is second with a 12.4 percent market share, the U.S. exports about 9 percent of...
Cotton is King
At least it is in the U.S. South. While production increased last year in Pakistan and Brazil, USDA predicts that most of the increase in global production in 2024/25 will be due to the expansion in U.S. output. The area under production is forecast to expand by 8 percent. Production in India a...
Hops Market Declines
After a decade of blistering growth, the U.S. domestic beer market declined in 2023. The reasons given include some consumers opting for a healthier, alcohol-free lifestyle, and others switching to drinking higher alcohol spirits. This increases the importance of exports but both beer and hops...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The weekly CFTC report was unsurprising in that managed money funds were net sellers through Tuesday’s data reporting period, which obviously coincided with the new contract lows in the grain markets. Funds were aggressive net sellers in corn, SRW wheat, and soyoil but were more cautious...
Honey Rebounding
Global honey production fell 6.3 percent between 2017 and 2019. Culprits for the decline included Colony Collapse Disorder and the use of pesticides such as neonicotinoids. However, since then production has rebounded by 4 percent and continues expanding on an upward trend. In Europe where the...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The weekly CFTC report featured a few surprises, most notably the 11,000-contract net buying in the Chicago wheat market. Heading into the report, expectations were that it would show funds expanding short positions heading into the February AOF from USDA. Rather, funds were parging back shorts...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The weekly CFTC report was in-line with expectations as it showed funds still being heavy net sellers in soybeans and corn with light short selling in the SRW wheat contract. Equally unsurprising was the net buying by managed money traders in soymeal and soyoil as they’ve largely whittled...
Eat Your Rice
South Korea wants more rice to be consumed and is subsidizing rice for college students, the cohort least likely to eat breakfast, and is incentivizing food products made from rice flour. Rice production is dropping as population growth has stalled, but rice consumption is dropping even faster...
Targeting India’s Rice Subsidies
At the behest of the domestic rice industry, U.S. House Ways & Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-MO) asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to conduct Section 332 fact-finding investigation of global competitiveness in rice, which the industry claims is skewed by unfair trade prac...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
Sweetly Accessible
World sugar prices have begun to moderate after hitting a multi-year high in 2023. The high of $0.28/pound last year was the highest price since 2011, but well below the $0.65/pound experienced in 1974. In real terms, sugar was the equivalent of $4.00/pound that year. That year also saw the lar...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
Food Sovereignty Flipped
The government of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and now the social justice warrior class in the U.S. are framing the impending ban on GMO corn imports as fulfilling their right to food sovereignty. U.S. corn exports to Mexico are around 17 MMT worth about $3.3 bill...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
India’s Rice Squeeze
The New Delhi playbook for staple crops is to offer farmers a generous Minimum Support Price (MSP), donate the extra output to the nation’s poor, and then dump on the world market any surpluses that would otherwise depress domestic prices. India’s rice surplus was around a quarter o...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
Smashing Success
Global demand for avocados has been growing at 7 percent per year. Mexico produces 30 percent of the world’s avocados but supplies 45 percent of those in international trade. The U.S. is by far the largest importer. Bloomberg cites the years-long drought in Spain as a threat to that count...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
New: WPI has added softs (cocoa, coffee, cotton, and sugar) and selected energy futures (NYMEX natural gas, crude oil, RBOB gasoline, and Chicago ethanol) to this report. Consequently, the attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net...
Tilting at Windmills
The American Salad Belt is largely on the West Coast and Congressional representatives mostly from that region have introduced legislation (The Specialty Crops Reporting on Opportunities and Promotion Act) intended to boost the export of crops like fruits and vegetables. The political represent...
Regional Favorites
Just as North America both produces and consumes most of the world’s turkey meat (with a small honorable mention to Brazil), it also has a unique fascination with cranberries. The U.S. produces 65 percent of the world’s cranberries and adding Canada makes North America the supplier...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
New: WPI has added softs (cocoa, coffee, cotton, and sugar) and selected energy futures (NYMEX natural gas, crude oil, RBOB gasoline, and Chicago ethanol) to this report. Consequently, the attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net...
Usual Problem for Specialty Crops
The Biden Administration has cranked up its outreach to politically red rural America with USTR Katherine Tai now following President Biden’s focus on agriculture. Instead of picking up rural Republican votes in 2024, the goal is said to be at least reducing voter turnout in these areas...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
New: WPI has added softs (cocoa, coffee, cotton, and sugar) and selected energy futures (NYMEX natural gas, crude oil, RBOB gasoline, and Chicago ethanol) to this report. Consequently, the attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net...
Export Sales
Export Sales and Shipments for October 20-26, 2023. Wheat: Net sales of 275,600 metric tons (MT) for 2023/2024 were down 24 percent from the previous week and 43 percent from the prior 4-week average. Export shipments of 100,500 MT--a marketing-year low--were down 24 percent from the prev...
White Commodities Focus
White commodities is an American euphemism for three crops, cotton, rise, and sugar, that are all white in color and each have statutory programs considered complex or unique. They are generally produced in the U.S. south, and their traits include: Cotton: A chemically intensive crop with the l...
Tangential Rice Market Impacts
Given current tight global rice stocks and high prices (see graph below), the question is how much wheat will be substituted for food or feed use. Rice prices have dropped since their peak early this year, but wheat is still 35 percent cheaper by weight than rice as a food grain. It is one reas...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
New: WPI has added softs (cocoa, coffee, cotton, and sugar) and selected energy futures (NYMEX natural gas, crude oil, RBOB gasoline, and Chicago ethanol) to this report. Consequently, the attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net...
Tale of Two Commodities
EU olive oil and U.S. oranges are each having a challenging year. Beyond that the similarities are few. The EU produces 60 percent of the world’s olive oil. At its peak, the U.S. produced around 12 percent of global oranges, but that is now down to 4.6 percent. Olive oil is a premiu...
War’s Impact on Food
Israel is not the agricultural export powerhouse like Ukraine, but it is a supplier of high quality and high value fruits and vegetables. The country is 95 percent self-sufficient in food despite occupying semi-arid desert land. Much of this was achieved through intense effort at land improveme...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
New: WPI has added softs (cocoa, coffee, cotton, and sugar) and selected energy futures (NYMEX natural gas, crude oil, RBOB gasoline, and Chicago ethanol) to this report. Consequently, the attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net...
Sub-Saharan Africa’s Future
Analysts at Rabobank looked at future food needs in Sub-Saharan Africa and concluded that wheat imports will increase and so will the need for milling capacity. Although its wheat production has been expanding, the region already imports almost 73 percent of its wheat consumption. Its wheat yie...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
New: WPI has added softs (cocoa, coffee, cotton, and sugar) and selected energy futures (NYMEX natural gas, crude oil, RBOB gasoline, and Chicago ethanol) to this report. Consequently, the attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net...
Rice Signals Future
Global rice stocks are down just 2.7 percent this year, but the drop is larger in key rice consuming countries, plus the largest rice exporting nation, India, imposed an export restriction. This has caused an exaggerated response in price with global values rising 29 percent year-on-year. ...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
New: WPI has added softs (cocoa, coffee, cotton, and sugar) and selected energy futures (NYMEX natural gas, crude oil, RBOB gasoline, and Chicago ethanol) to this report. Consequently, the attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net...
Tomato Wars
U.S. and Mexican trade officials meet in Washington this Friday for the annual bilateral economic dialogue. Labor rights, automobile domestic content, and maybe GMO corn are likely topics. Another will be tomatoes. American tomato growers and their members of Congress are demanding that the Bid...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
New: WPI has added softs (cocoa, coffee, cotton, and sugar) and selected energy futures (NYMEX natural gas, crude oil, RBOB gasoline, and Chicago ethanol) to this report. Consequently, the attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
New: WPI has added softs (cocoa, coffee, cotton, and sugar) and selected energy futures (NYMEX natural gas, crude oil, RBOB gasoline, and Chicago ethanol) to this report. Consequently, the attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net...
Minor Reserves
Norway will reportedly begin spending $6 million/year through the end of the decade to purchase 15,000 MT grain each year for a strategic reserve. Although the grain is not specified, it will presumably involve wheat since that is the primary food grain consumed by Norway’s 5.4 million pe...
Vegetable Market Uniqueness
Unlike grains, oilseeds and livestock products, the U.S. is increasingly import dependent for fresh vegetables. About one-third of the U.S. fresh vegetable market is supplied by imports, with 77 percent of the volume supplied by Mexico and 11 percent trucked down from Canada. Central and South...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
New: WPI has added softs (cocoa, coffee, cotton, and sugar) and selected energy futures (NYMEX natural gas, crude oil, RBOB gasoline, and Chicago ethanol) to this report. Consequently, the attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net...
Rice Constrained
The Philippines Department of Agriculture announced the need to import another 500 KMT of rice. The country is already the second largest importer of rice after China, and this purchase will ensure it is a record year for Philippine imports. For most staple commodities, this is not a large volu...
New Era for Sweet
The world’s two largest sugar producing and exporting nations, Brazil and India, also use part of their output to make ethanol. Brazil has a long history of doing so but it has not changed the relative share of sugar that is exported. By contrast, and as predicted, India’s share of...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
Eat less, Toot Less
Plants such as beans, lentils and chickpeas are the nutritional rage. They are plant derived foods with higher protein content and thus their production and consumption should be on the rise. But alas, the USDA data is not comporting with that nutritional advice. Over the past four years,...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
Based on futures’ price action late last week and early this week, one would be expecting funds to have been net sellers in the major ag commodities, and that’s exactly what happened. Funds expanded their short soybean position by some 30,000 contracts, making it a new five-year low...
An Era up in Smoke
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has proposed that anyone turning 15 years of age or younger in 2024 will be banned forever from purchasing cigarettes. Eash year, the age restriction will be raised by one year. The bill also makes vapes less appealing. The goal is to start the first generatio...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
Cocoa Puffs
The global cocoa price hit $10,120/MT yesterday, triple its price last fall, and it is still unlikely to be at its apex. The cause is a sharp drop-off in production in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, the two countries that produce nearly 65 percent of the world’s cocoa beans. Some ha...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
We All Scream
President Joe Biden is “bad talking” about the food industry, accusing it of greed for raising prices. While his focus was on “chips” and shrinkflation, he could also have talked about his favorite food, ice cream. After all, his generation – those over age 75, are...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
Peas Please
As noted in today’s Black Sea report, the price of peas in Russia are rising as exports go unfettered by any export tax. Canada is by far the largest exporter of peas with a two-thirds market share. But Russia is second with a 12.4 percent market share, the U.S. exports about 9 percent of...
Cotton is King
At least it is in the U.S. South. While production increased last year in Pakistan and Brazil, USDA predicts that most of the increase in global production in 2024/25 will be due to the expansion in U.S. output. The area under production is forecast to expand by 8 percent. Production in India a...
Hops Market Declines
After a decade of blistering growth, the U.S. domestic beer market declined in 2023. The reasons given include some consumers opting for a healthier, alcohol-free lifestyle, and others switching to drinking higher alcohol spirits. This increases the importance of exports but both beer and hops...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The weekly CFTC report was unsurprising in that managed money funds were net sellers through Tuesday’s data reporting period, which obviously coincided with the new contract lows in the grain markets. Funds were aggressive net sellers in corn, SRW wheat, and soyoil but were more cautious...
Honey Rebounding
Global honey production fell 6.3 percent between 2017 and 2019. Culprits for the decline included Colony Collapse Disorder and the use of pesticides such as neonicotinoids. However, since then production has rebounded by 4 percent and continues expanding on an upward trend. In Europe where the...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The weekly CFTC report featured a few surprises, most notably the 11,000-contract net buying in the Chicago wheat market. Heading into the report, expectations were that it would show funds expanding short positions heading into the February AOF from USDA. Rather, funds were parging back shorts...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The weekly CFTC report was in-line with expectations as it showed funds still being heavy net sellers in soybeans and corn with light short selling in the SRW wheat contract. Equally unsurprising was the net buying by managed money traders in soymeal and soyoil as they’ve largely whittled...
Eat Your Rice
South Korea wants more rice to be consumed and is subsidizing rice for college students, the cohort least likely to eat breakfast, and is incentivizing food products made from rice flour. Rice production is dropping as population growth has stalled, but rice consumption is dropping even faster...
Targeting India’s Rice Subsidies
At the behest of the domestic rice industry, U.S. House Ways & Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-MO) asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to conduct Section 332 fact-finding investigation of global competitiveness in rice, which the industry claims is skewed by unfair trade prac...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
Sweetly Accessible
World sugar prices have begun to moderate after hitting a multi-year high in 2023. The high of $0.28/pound last year was the highest price since 2011, but well below the $0.65/pound experienced in 1974. In real terms, sugar was the equivalent of $4.00/pound that year. That year also saw the lar...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
Food Sovereignty Flipped
The government of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and now the social justice warrior class in the U.S. are framing the impending ban on GMO corn imports as fulfilling their right to food sovereignty. U.S. corn exports to Mexico are around 17 MMT worth about $3.3 bill...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
India’s Rice Squeeze
The New Delhi playbook for staple crops is to offer farmers a generous Minimum Support Price (MSP), donate the extra output to the nation’s poor, and then dump on the world market any surpluses that would otherwise depress domestic prices. India’s rice surplus was around a quarter o...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
Smashing Success
Global demand for avocados has been growing at 7 percent per year. Mexico produces 30 percent of the world’s avocados but supplies 45 percent of those in international trade. The U.S. is by far the largest importer. Bloomberg cites the years-long drought in Spain as a threat to that count...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
The attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net position in key agricultural commodity markets. The data is, of course, taken from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders report, using the futures only data. WPI recently completed a...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
New: WPI has added softs (cocoa, coffee, cotton, and sugar) and selected energy futures (NYMEX natural gas, crude oil, RBOB gasoline, and Chicago ethanol) to this report. Consequently, the attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net...
Tilting at Windmills
The American Salad Belt is largely on the West Coast and Congressional representatives mostly from that region have introduced legislation (The Specialty Crops Reporting on Opportunities and Promotion Act) intended to boost the export of crops like fruits and vegetables. The political represent...
Regional Favorites
Just as North America both produces and consumes most of the world’s turkey meat (with a small honorable mention to Brazil), it also has a unique fascination with cranberries. The U.S. produces 65 percent of the world’s cranberries and adding Canada makes North America the supplier...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
New: WPI has added softs (cocoa, coffee, cotton, and sugar) and selected energy futures (NYMEX natural gas, crude oil, RBOB gasoline, and Chicago ethanol) to this report. Consequently, the attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net...
Usual Problem for Specialty Crops
The Biden Administration has cranked up its outreach to politically red rural America with USTR Katherine Tai now following President Biden’s focus on agriculture. Instead of picking up rural Republican votes in 2024, the goal is said to be at least reducing voter turnout in these areas...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
New: WPI has added softs (cocoa, coffee, cotton, and sugar) and selected energy futures (NYMEX natural gas, crude oil, RBOB gasoline, and Chicago ethanol) to this report. Consequently, the attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net...
Export Sales
Export Sales and Shipments for October 20-26, 2023. Wheat: Net sales of 275,600 metric tons (MT) for 2023/2024 were down 24 percent from the previous week and 43 percent from the prior 4-week average. Export shipments of 100,500 MT--a marketing-year low--were down 24 percent from the prev...
White Commodities Focus
White commodities is an American euphemism for three crops, cotton, rise, and sugar, that are all white in color and each have statutory programs considered complex or unique. They are generally produced in the U.S. south, and their traits include: Cotton: A chemically intensive crop with the l...
Tangential Rice Market Impacts
Given current tight global rice stocks and high prices (see graph below), the question is how much wheat will be substituted for food or feed use. Rice prices have dropped since their peak early this year, but wheat is still 35 percent cheaper by weight than rice as a food grain. It is one reas...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
New: WPI has added softs (cocoa, coffee, cotton, and sugar) and selected energy futures (NYMEX natural gas, crude oil, RBOB gasoline, and Chicago ethanol) to this report. Consequently, the attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net...
Tale of Two Commodities
EU olive oil and U.S. oranges are each having a challenging year. Beyond that the similarities are few. The EU produces 60 percent of the world’s olive oil. At its peak, the U.S. produced around 12 percent of global oranges, but that is now down to 4.6 percent. Olive oil is a premiu...
War’s Impact on Food
Israel is not the agricultural export powerhouse like Ukraine, but it is a supplier of high quality and high value fruits and vegetables. The country is 95 percent self-sufficient in food despite occupying semi-arid desert land. Much of this was achieved through intense effort at land improveme...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
New: WPI has added softs (cocoa, coffee, cotton, and sugar) and selected energy futures (NYMEX natural gas, crude oil, RBOB gasoline, and Chicago ethanol) to this report. Consequently, the attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net...
Sub-Saharan Africa’s Future
Analysts at Rabobank looked at future food needs in Sub-Saharan Africa and concluded that wheat imports will increase and so will the need for milling capacity. Although its wheat production has been expanding, the region already imports almost 73 percent of its wheat consumption. Its wheat yie...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
New: WPI has added softs (cocoa, coffee, cotton, and sugar) and selected energy futures (NYMEX natural gas, crude oil, RBOB gasoline, and Chicago ethanol) to this report. Consequently, the attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net...
Rice Signals Future
Global rice stocks are down just 2.7 percent this year, but the drop is larger in key rice consuming countries, plus the largest rice exporting nation, India, imposed an export restriction. This has caused an exaggerated response in price with global values rising 29 percent year-on-year. ...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
New: WPI has added softs (cocoa, coffee, cotton, and sugar) and selected energy futures (NYMEX natural gas, crude oil, RBOB gasoline, and Chicago ethanol) to this report. Consequently, the attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net...
Tomato Wars
U.S. and Mexican trade officials meet in Washington this Friday for the annual bilateral economic dialogue. Labor rights, automobile domestic content, and maybe GMO corn are likely topics. Another will be tomatoes. American tomato growers and their members of Congress are demanding that the Bid...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
New: WPI has added softs (cocoa, coffee, cotton, and sugar) and selected energy futures (NYMEX natural gas, crude oil, RBOB gasoline, and Chicago ethanol) to this report. Consequently, the attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
New: WPI has added softs (cocoa, coffee, cotton, and sugar) and selected energy futures (NYMEX natural gas, crude oil, RBOB gasoline, and Chicago ethanol) to this report. Consequently, the attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net...
Minor Reserves
Norway will reportedly begin spending $6 million/year through the end of the decade to purchase 15,000 MT grain each year for a strategic reserve. Although the grain is not specified, it will presumably involve wheat since that is the primary food grain consumed by Norway’s 5.4 million pe...
Vegetable Market Uniqueness
Unlike grains, oilseeds and livestock products, the U.S. is increasingly import dependent for fresh vegetables. About one-third of the U.S. fresh vegetable market is supplied by imports, with 77 percent of the volume supplied by Mexico and 11 percent trucked down from Canada. Central and South...
CFTC COT Report Analysis
New: WPI has added softs (cocoa, coffee, cotton, and sugar) and selected energy futures (NYMEX natural gas, crude oil, RBOB gasoline, and Chicago ethanol) to this report. Consequently, the attached PDF offers graphical depiction and seasonal analysis of managed money and commercial traders' net...
Rice Constrained
The Philippines Department of Agriculture announced the need to import another 500 KMT of rice. The country is already the second largest importer of rice after China, and this purchase will ensure it is a record year for Philippine imports. For most staple commodities, this is not a large volu...
New Era for Sweet
The world’s two largest sugar producing and exporting nations, Brazil and India, also use part of their output to make ethanol. Brazil has a long history of doing so but it has not changed the relative share of sugar that is exported. By contrast, and as predicted, India’s share of...