Inflation Focus As the U.S. Senate debates a $1.9 trillion COVID economic recovery effort, the issue of its potential for stoking inflation has been forced into the debate by a frisky bond market. Indeed, equity markets fell today despite Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell saying that easy money must continue until the economy recovers. One would have expected the market to fall if he had cautioned about inflation and thus the potential for higher interest rates. The markets appeared to either ignore or disagree with Federal Reserve policymakers. The Fed could note that recovery from the great recession was slow, but others will note the spike in inflation in 2011, and that occurred with far lower levels of liquidity being pumped into...
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
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.