Corn was the upside leader for the CBOT in a generally quiet day of post-Thanksgiving trading. The Export Sales report offered support for corn but did little for the other major ag commodities. Soybeans traded both sides of unchanged and ended slightly higher while wheat sold off sharply heading into the closing bell. Interestingly, the final settlement prices in SRW wheat were some 4-5 cents higher than the last traded futures price, indicating a fair bit of options trade or block trades occurred at the last minute. Overall, the day’s trade did little to alter the existing trends; corn and soybeans are trending sideways while wheat continues to sink lower amid fund selling despite a relatively bullish fundamental outlook.  ...
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.