Last half December is generally quiet and rangebound in the markets as the B Team is instructed to ride out the holidays in a caution mode. Except for the higher volume today in SRW on fears of an Arctic vortex, volume in corn and the soy complex was down by a third. That makes the market easily pushed around and it was the sullen mood on Wall Street that provided the damper today. Yesterday’s staunch and hawkish stance by the Fed coupled with today’s retail sales report showing a pullback in November was enough to reinforce dread about the future. U.S. retail sales grew, especially for food and restaurants, but the pace was slower, and a real Grinch was falling manufacturing output. The result was the Dow, S&P...
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.