The CBOT was higher overnight as the U.S. dollar fell to a three-year low, but the day session saw the major ag market slip lower and end in the red with pressure from macroeconomic markets increasing. In addition to sparking trade wars with nearly every major U.S. trading partner, U.S. President Trump is now taking jabs at the Federal Reserve, which is another unexpected move that will introduce uncertainty into markets. The last thing ag bulls need right now is macroeconomic uncertainty, and the move triggered widespread, albeit moderate, selling at the CBOT on Monday. Beyond the emerging kerfuffle between President Trump and the Fed, ag markets received some somewhat positive, albeit still overall concerning, news from the USTR on Monday...
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.