CBOT grains posted slight gains for the day while the soy complex worked its way lower as traders unwound long grain/short soy spreads that were placed last week. Wheat moved higher on news that Russia will not allow the export of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea unless NATO suspends its economic sanctions, a move NATO will not entertain as it is practically the only non-military option it has to counter Russia’s aggression. The diplomatic stalemate means the world is still short wheat and grain, which put a bid under futures for the day. Trading volume was generally quiet, and funds were seemingly content to hold existing positions or exit recently acquired ones while waiting for additional news on fundamental developments, like Chi...
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.