U.S. soybean processing margins have seen considerable volatility over the past month as multiple fundamental factors upended global oilseed and product prices. The most obvious influence was the recent trade war and tit-for-tat escalation in tariffs between the U.S. and, which was exacerbated by initial delays in the South American harvest. Now, oilseed markets are adjusting to the rising competitiveness of Brazil and Argentina as export origins as well as U.S. soyoil’ s decreasing competitiveness on the export market, thanks to higher CBOT futures and weaker palm oil values in Southeast Asia. Amid this volatility, the CBOT board crush margin (that is, the margin implied by the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures contracts for corre...
Key Market Insights The broad market is locked in on this week’s Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, but this is no longer just a trade summit. Increasingly, the meeting is becoming tied directly to Iran, energy security, and the growing global economic fallout from disruptions through the Strai...
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.