Friday’s CFTC report showed managed money traders breaking a three-week trend of net short covering in the ag space as managed money traders expanded their almost-neutral positions. The expansion of short holdings came primarily from selling across the three soy complex contracts and from net selling in wheat futures. Even with this action, funds are still practically neutral across aggregate ag markets, holding a minor short of 41,000 contracts. The neutral positioning leave an uncertain outlook for the fall and suggests that funds could easily push the ag markets higher or lower. Through last Tuesday’s CFTC reporting deadline, funds were bearish ...
From WPI Consulting
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.