TikTok is still operating but the tick tock on South American will eventually run out of time. Notable developments today included a lower open, but still plenty of strength. Corn remains up about a nickel for the week, beans up more than 30-cents and while wheat dipped today, the large gains last Friday and Tuesday largely hold. Live and feeder cattle hit new contract highs. Regardless of the weather, competition from South America is increasing. Argentine President and libertarian Javier Milei cut his country’s export tax on soymeal and oil from 31 percent to 24.5 percent, while reducing the export levy on soybeans from 33 percent to 26 percent and on corn from 12 percent to 9.5 percent. The reductions only last through June a...
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.