The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) releases crop condition reports detailing crop progress and growing conditions for various crops including corn, soybeans, and winter wheat. Previous research has investigated market impacts from various USDA reports, but crop condition reports have received little attention. This article investigates the impact of crop condition reports on winter wheat prices at the national level and for a local market. We employ both parametric and nonparametric tests. Results suggest that crop condition reports for winter wheat do not generally affect market prices. This contrasts with results found in corn and soybean markets.

This paper examines three invited papers focused on commodity prices. Public responses to high nominal commodity prices and perceived increases in price risk have ranged from attempts to assign blame, attempts to change contracting arrangements, and development of public policy that “protects“ the market from future occurrences of unacceptable behavior. Interestingly, a result of increased commodity price volatility has suggested that futures markets no longer “work.“ This is ironic given that futures markets initially came into existence as tools for managing the negative impacts of commodity price risk. In response to perceptions of market failure some are looking for strategies to regulate the who and how of futures trading.