Overnight trading was mostly lower on technical trades, the fact that short covering seems to have ended for the week, and a new trade war. The president announced late Thursday that the U.S. would apply a 5 percent tariff on goods imported from Mexico, which will be gradually increased to 25 percent until illegal immigration across the southern border is sufficiently curbed. This creates the opportunity for retaliatory tariffs by the country that happens to be the largest importer of U.S. corn. The U.S. now has escalating or potentially escalating trade wars with its biggest purchasers of corn and soybeans. This is hardly a positive development for crop demand. The day session opened with continued soybean short covering and the unwinding...
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.