Energy markets mostly bounced back today after a Black Friday shortened trading session where energy futures dipped across the board. On Friday, crude oil was down about $3.00 per barrel, gasoline down more than $0.08 per gallon and diesel about $0.07 per gallon. Ethanol followed, with the January contract dropping to $1.368 per gallon, rebounding today to $1.409 per gallon. The bearishness came after concerns about China’s manufacturing pace (though doubts about China’s performance were dashed today as the reports out of China showed results above expectations), the tenuousness of the U.S.-China trade talks, and news that the U.S. was a net exporter of petroleum in September. However, crude oil bounce...
Key Market Insights The broad market is locked in on this week’s Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, but this is no longer just a trade summit. Increasingly, the meeting is becoming tied directly to Iran, energy security, and the growing global economic fallout from disruptions through the Strai...
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.