The CBOT turned lower to start the week with some of the profit-taking that defined Friday’s end-of-month trade continuing into the first day of February. Also pressuring grain futures was an improved forecast for Argentina, a surge in the U.S. dollar, and sharply lower energy markets. The grain trade received very little bullish news for the day, which was reflected in futures markets’ action. The only markets to see any notable strength were the livestock contracts, where surprisingly small cattle numbers and a buoyant pork market supported strong gains. For grains, this week’s trade seems to be shaping up to be a correction from last week’s surprise surge with the bearish global supply theme returning to haunt mar...
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.