The CBOT started the week higher in modest-volume trade. Trading volume has been limited following the November WASDE as market participants have turned to closely watching demand signals, rather than the more volatile supply-side factors. The soy complex was the upside leader today with soyoil firming from the start. Corn dipped lower after the open but rallied on rumors of China export business. Wheat futures broke lower but struggled to hold those losses as the corn market moved higher. After mid-day, wheat sellers had given up and the market settled higher. Funds are thought to be net buyers in corn and soybeans by 3,000-5,000 contracts and likely bought some 1,500-2,000 contracts of wheat. Weekend rains in Brazil were insufficient to...
From WPI Consulting
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.