Commodity Insight: News & Views

Agriculture continues to make headlines. Here is some of the latest farm industry news.

• CBS News: “The red-hot job market capped off 2022 on a high note, with employers adding 223,000 jobs in December, the Labor Department reported. The payroll numbers reflect a slowdown from the pace of job creation earlier in the year, but they are slightly above economists’ predictions that businesses had added about 200,000 jobs last month.”

• MarketWatch: “The Fed delivered a message to the stock market: Big rallies will prolong pain.”

• Barron’s: “The Fed is on a collision course with investors.”

• Barron’s: “Bitcoin price targets for 2023 are in — and they are grim. Brace for a 50% fall.”

• Associated Press: “Global prices for food commodities like grain and vegetable oils were the highest on record last year even after falling for nine months in a row, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said, as Russia’s war in Ukraine, drought and other factors drove up inflation and worsened hunger worldwide.”

• Bloomberg: “World Bank to warn of global recession risk in economic outlook.”

• CNN: “Goldman Sachs will lay off as many as 3,200 employees this week as an uncertain economic and market climate pushes the bank to hunt for cost savings.”

• Bloomberg: “Morgan Stanley warns U.S. stocks risk 22% slump.”

• MarketWatch: “History shows odds favor a 20% stock-market return in 2023 after a brutal 2022, Fundstrat says.”

• Farm Journal / AgWeb: “November exports of U.S. pork reached a 2022 high in both volume and value, according to data released by USDA and compiled by the U.S. Meat Export Federation. Even though November beef exports were below the large year-ago totals, 2022 export value has already set a full-year record of nearly $11 billion.”

• CNBC: “China’s new COVID surge is crippling the world’s most important factories and biggest ports”

• AgriNews / Commodity Insight: “Commodities in the new year will outperform the other major asset classes, stocks, bonds and currencies. Of course, not all commodities will do well as some will be laggards, not possessing the right sort of bullish fundamentals to spark and sustain higher values. But as a general rule of thumb and with 2023 at hand, commodities will be the most bullish group of markets anywhere in the new year.”

• MarketWatch: “‘Markets are going to get rocked’ as Fed is likely to push rates higher, economist warns.”

• Insider: “The difference between the yield on the two- and 10-year Treasury notes is the widest its been in about four decades, flashing a notorious warning of a looming recession and a possible sign of more pain to come for stocks, DataTrek said in a note.”

• Farm Journal / Drovers: “The cattle and beef market momentum at the end of 2022 has carried over into the first week of the new year. The new year looks to contrast with last year with noticeably tighter cattle numbers, especially at the feedlot level, driven by previous herd liquidation and sharply lower feeder cattle supplies.”

• Yahoo! News: “2022 was the fifth warmest year on record, adding further evidence of climate change. The last eight years have been the warmest eight on record.”

• CNBC: “Inflation closed out 2022 in a modest retreat, with consumer prices in December posting their biggest monthly decline since early in the pandemic, the Labor Department reported.”

• MarketWatch: “Inflation slows again and clears path for slower Fed rate hikes.”

• Successful Farming: “Surprising traders, USDA reports smaller corn and soy harvests and shorter supplies.”