Kevin Garland still remembers the pessimistic prediction of a well-wisher when she took over as executive director of the National Ballet of Canada a decade ago.
Greater Toronto Area home sales and prices increased in May, making it the second best month ever on record, according to figures released Friday.
The Toronto Real Estate Board reported (PDF) 10,046 sales, up six per cent from May of 2010.
Average prices were also up by 9 per cent to $485,520, compared with $446,593 in 2010.
Strongest price growth was for single-detached homes in the City of Toronto.
Russia’s central bank unexpectedly raised its overnight deposit rate, signaling it may refrain from tightening monetary policy again as price pressures ebb and the economic recovery remains shaky.
Bank Rossii raised the fixed overnight deposit rate to 3.5 percent from 3.25 percent, effective May 31, the fourth increase since December, the Moscow-based central bank said today in an e-mailed statement. Nine of 20 economists in a Bloomberg survey predicted the move. The refinancing rate and overnight auction- based repurchase rates were left at 8.25 percent and 5.50 percent, in line with economists’ expectations.
Chairman Sergey Ignatiev is trying to keep inflation between 6 percent and 7 percent without stifling credit flows and undermining an economic recovery in the world’s biggest energy supplier. The inflation rate is now “in order” and the bank will be “very cautious” in raising borrowing costs to “avoid hurting economic growth,” Ignatiev said May 26.
Today’s increase and earlier measures “provide an acceptable balance between the risks of continued inflationary pressure and slowing economic growth for the nearest months,” the central bank said.
Ruble Weakens
Policy makers left mandatory reserve ratios unchanged for a second month after lifting them in January, February and March. Economists expect Bank Rossii to resume increases in the second half of the year, according to the median of 12 forecasts in a Bloomberg survey.
The ruble erased gains after advancing on the decision and was 0.1 percent lower against the dollar at 28.0850 at 5:40 p.m. in Moscow. Russia’s ruble bonds due March 2014 slid for the first time in three days, pushing the yield 3 basis points higher to 6.59 percent.
The Micex Index of 30 stocks added to gains after the announcement and was up 0.3 percent at 1,642.13 at 4:42 p.m.
“It’s a signal for the market that the central bank continues to be watching inflation, and that it potentially intends to tighten policy if economic growth firms and consumers proceed with their current behavior of lower savings and higher borrowing,” Dmitry Polevoy, chief economist for Russia and Kazakhstan at ING Groep in Moscow, said by telephone.
Slowest Growing
The slowest-growing economy among the so-called BRIC nations, Russia is relying on revenue from oil to bolster its recovery, while seeking ways to reduce its reliance on energy exports. Oil at more than $100 a barrel is no longer stoking economic expansion, which slowed to 4.1 percent in the first quarter from 4.5 percent in the fourth. Growth slid further in April, to 3 on line pay day loans.3 percent, the Economy Ministry said May 26.
The economy will expand 4.5 percent next year, compared with 9.1 percent for China and 7.8 percent for India, the International Monetary Fund forecast in April.
The pace of inflation has shown signs of steadying. Consumer-price growth in May will probably match the rate from the same month last year, when prices gained a monthly 0.5 percent, Ignatiev said May 26. The annual rate in April matched an 18-month high of 9.6 percent and reached 9.7 percent as of May 23, the central bank said today.
Consumer price growth “remains relatively low” in monthly terms, policy makers said in the statement. Food-price growth has slowed as the knock-on effects from last year’s drought, the country’s worst in 50 years, eased, the bank added.
Grain Ban Lifted
A ban on grain exports introduced as a result of the drought will be allowed to expire July 1, representing the “only serious, significant risk factor” for inflation, Ignatiev said today, the RIA Novosti news service reported.
Russian grain prices are now about half global levels, First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov said in a meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin May 28.
Unlike their counterparts in Brazil, China and India, Russian policy makers preferred currency gains and higher reserve requirements for lenders as inflation-fighting tools to help fledgling growth. The ruble has gained 9 percent so far this year after the bank relaxed currency controls.
Elections
With parliamentary elections at the end of the year and presidential elections in early 2012, policy makers will probably step up their inflation-fighting rhetoric and revive efforts to meet this year’s price goal, according to Timothy Ash, head of emerging-market research at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in London.
Previously the central bank “put a greater weight on growth, but with signs the population is becoming increasingly sensitive to the impact of inflation on real disposable incomes, and with opinion polls showing a dip in support for the ruling elites, controlling inflation is also center stage,” Ash wrote in a note e-mailed on May 26.
The central bank cited high unemployment, slowing industrial production growth, and an “extremely low” level of investment as key risks to growth. Consumers are borrowing and spending more while saving less, which could boost economic growth and inflation, it said.
Stock futures are down sharply as new warnings about European finances stoke fears about that region’s debt crisis. The euro dipped to its lowest level in two months.
Ahead of the opening bell, Dow Jones industrial average futures are down 97, or 0.8 percent, at 12,369. S&P 500 index futures are down 10, or 0.8 percent, at 1,317. Nasdaq 100 futures are down 20, or 0.8 percent, at 2,324.
Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s cut its outlook Saturday on Italy’s debt to negative from stable.
Financial markets in Spain are down sharply after a defeat for its ruling Socialist party caused investors to fear that the government cannot solve its public finance issues.
On Friday, the Fitch ratings agency downgraded Greece’s debt rating further into junk status.
Sony executives have bowed in apology for a security breach in the PlayStation Network that caused the loss of personal data of some 77 million accounts on the online service.
Three executives, including Kazuo Hirai, the chief of Sony Corp.’s PlayStation video game unit, bowed for several seconds at Tokyo headquarters Sunday in the traditional style of a Japanese apology. It was their first public appearance since the worldwide problems surfaced in April payday loans with no fax.
Sony said account information, including names, birthdates, email addresses and log-in information, was compromised for players using its PlayStation Network. Hirai asked that all users change their passwords.
Upbeat U.S. earnings buoyed stock markets around the world Thursday ahead of another round of company reports, while the euro neared a one-and-a-half year high against the dollar as investors were willing to take on more risky trades
Following a long period when investors have been focusing on other issues, such as Japan’s earthquake and tsunami, Europe’s debt crisis and the unrest in the Arab world, earnings have returned to prominence.
So far, the latest corporate results season has been generally positive, with a number of companies announcing forecast-busting earnings in another sign that the U.S. economy, the world’s largest, is performing strongly.
Particularly encouraging was Wednesday’s after-hourse statement from Apple Inc. that its hit iPhone helped earnings nearly double. Apple’s technology peer Intel Corp. also beat expectations, helping to buoy sentiment toward the technology sector. General Electric Co. then kicked off a slew of results Thursday on a positive note.
Others reporting Thursday include McDonald’s Corp. and Morgan Stanley & Co.
“In the past couple of days, the U.S. earnings season has enabled investors shrug off the euro woes and budget deficit concerns that dogged the early part of the week,” said Yusuf Heusen, senior sales trader at IG Index.
“Intel’s strong figures yesterday, followed closely by Apple’s blockbusting results, seem to have ignited risk appetite once more and investors will be looking for more of the same before the Easter break,” Heusen added.
In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was up 0.1 percent at 6,028 while Germany’s DAX rose 0.7 percent to 7,298. The CAC-40 in France was 0.4 percent higher at 4,021.
Wall Street was poised for a third day of gains following Monday’s retreat when investors were spooked by Standard & Poor’s warning that the U.S. faces a one-in-three chance of having its triple A credit rating downgraded. Dow futures were up 0.4 percent at 12,447 while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 futures rose 0.5 percent to 1,335.
Buoyant stock markets are an indication of heightened investor appetite for risk. That affects other markets too and in the currency markets the euro and the Australian dollar were the big gainers as investors looked for better interest rate returns instead.
“Monday is a distant memory and markets have shifted from shunning risk into the upcoming holiday period to assuming as much of it as they can,” said Robert Ryan, a foreign exchange strategist at BNP Paribas.
The euro was up another 0.9 percent at $1.4633 by late morning London time, a little shy of its earlier high of $1.4648, which is its strongest level since December 2009.
Despite occasional bouts of weakness, such as on Monday when the dollar _ perhaps surprisingly _ gained support from its widely-perceived status as a safe haven asset, the euro has been strong all year as it benefits from expectations that the European Central Bank will follow up this month’s first interest rate rise in nearly three years with more increases in the months ahead.
The Australian dollar was also in the spotlight, as it surged as investors flocked to so-called high yielding currencies.
Australia’s benchmark interest rate is much higher than the U.S., giving investors better returns, and it is likely to be increased further if world growth gains momentum.
At one point Thursday, the Australian dollar surged to $1.0741 on Thursday _ its highest level since it was floated in December 1983.
“There’s been a general rise in risk appetite, reflected not only in equities but in Asian currencies, which have strengthened as well,” said David Cohen , economist at Action Economics in Singapore.
Earlier in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index closed up 0.8 percent to 9,685.77 while South Korea’s Kospi index rose 1.3 percent to 2,198.54. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng ended 1 percent higher to 24,138.31, and mainland China’s Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.7 percent to 3,026.67.
In the oil markets, the focus remained on the fighting in Libya. Oil prices have increased 20 percent since the beginning of the year as investors anticipated rising global demand while unrest in North Africa and the Middle East threatened oil fields and shipping lanes vital to world supply.
Benchmark crude for June delivery rose 62 cents to $112.07 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $3.17 to settle at $111.45 on the Nymex on Wednesday.
China’s statistics bureau said it “condemns” leaks of economic data and those responsible will be punished, after the office released economic indicators that matched rumors circulating in the market and online yesterday.
“We believe any illegal behavior will be punished by law,” Sheng Laiyun, a spokesman for the department, told a briefing in Beijing today. “Those spreading state secrets on the Internet or other public information networks should be held accountable.”
China’s first-quarter growth figure and other monthly economic data including the inflation rate were leaked yesterday ahead of the official release. Phoenix Satellite Television Holdings Ltd. reported 10 economic indicators on its website yesterday morning, citing an unidentified source. Figures released later yesterday by China’s central bank and today by the National Bureau of Statistics matched 9 of the numbers. Phoenix TV didn’t immediately respond to questions from Bloomberg News.
“Key data are widely circulated in the Chinese bureaucracy prior to their release,” said Brian Jackson, an emerging markets strategist at Royal Bank of Canada in Hong Kong. “The recent accuracy of market rumors must raise concerns about the integrity of the process.”
China’s economy, the world’s second-biggest, grew a more- than-estimated 9.7 percent in the first quarter and consumer prices rose 5.4 percent in March from a year earlier, the fastest pace since 2008.
Improving the System
Government departments, institutions and individuals have a responsibility to keep state secrets, Sheng said at the briefing. The bureau has narrowed the personnel who have “dealings with relevant information,” he said.
The bureau is studying ways to improve the system, including shortening the time-frame between production of the information and its release so as to reduce risks, Sheng said.
The Phoenix TV site said March consumer prices would rise 5.3 percent to 5.4 percent, while rumors circulating on China’s microblogs by yesterday afternoon had a consensus on 5 payday advance online.4, which also matched the official release today.
Jiang Guangce, a Shanghai-based partner and fund manager at Congrong Investment Management Co., got the correct numbers for China’s gross domestic product and consumer price index from a Hong Kong fund management company yesterday.
‘Normal in China’
“It’s normal in China, there are always channels for this sort of information,” Jiang said in a phone interview today, “The short side and the futures market in Hong Kong are always a step ahead. This is a result of China’s power structure.”
It was the fifth time in six months that an accurate consumer price index number was accurately circulated in the market and press reports before release. It’s become one of the most sought-after numbers because of China’s battle to curb inflation, which jumped to a 32-month high in March.
Early disclosure happens because too many government offices see data before they’re made public, He Keng, a former deputy head of the department and now a member of its consulting committee, said in an interview last month.
“A new set of procedures just has to be developed,” said David Cohen, a Singapore-based economist at Action Economics. “They’ll have to give more authority to the people in charge of data collecting and dissemination, and make clear to people, such as those in the central bank, not to talk about it.”
Any unauthorized release violates the Statistics Law and is punishable by a warning, demotion or firing, according to a rule issued by the government in March 2009.
A legal “loophole” means China’s laws don’t count profiting on leaked economic indicators as insider trading, according to Yan Yiming, a Shanghai-based securities lawyer.
–Kevin Hamlin, Fan Wenxin. With assistance by Zheng Lifei in Beijing and Sophie Leung in Hong Kong.
Europe’s top financial officials said Friday that debt-ridden Portugal will need around euro80 billion ($114 billion) in rescue loans and that negotiations over a full, multiyear bailout program will begin immediately.
A final deal should be in place by mid-May, allowing the debt-ridden country to meet huge bond repayments in June, the EU’s Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said.
Rehn said the euro80 billion loan was based on “very, very preliminary estimates” and that nailing down a final amount will require several “weeks of empirical work.”
Portugal this week became the third country in the eurozone to request international help, after last year’s multibillion rescue packages for Greece and Ireland from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
While a rescue of Portugal had long been anticipated and its cash needs can easily be met by Europe’s existing financial backstops, the country’s political situation _ where a caretaker government is in charge until elections in early June _ makes reaching a final deal more difficult.
Prime Minister Jose Socrates resigned late last month after opposition parties rejected unpopular spending cuts and tax increases that the government said were necessary to get the country’s struggling economy back on track.
EU finance ministers, who are in Hungary for a two-day meeting, said Friday that the economic adjustment program that accompanies the rescue loans will have to go beyond the measures rejected by the opposition, heralding difficult negotiations ahead.
Rehn said it’s “essential” that a cross-party agreement is reached in Portugal and added that experts from the European Commission, the EU’s executive, the European Central Bank and IMF will travel to Lisbon soon to take a close look at the country’s books online payday loan lenders.
Any program will be based on strict conditions to ensure that Portugal will eventually be strong enough to repay its creditors and will most likely last for three years, Rehn said.
It will require not only cuts in government spending, but also reform measures designed to make Portugal’s economy more competitive, Jean Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg and the main spokesman for the euro countries, said.
On top of that, the loans will most likely include a “special allocation” to shore up Portugal’s banks, Rehn said. Portugal’s banks have lent heavily to households and businesses and have relied on ECB emergency funding for months.
Rehn added that Lisbon will also have to sign up to an “ambitious privatization program” to help it meet its funding needs.
European officials hope that aid for Portugal will finally draw a line under the debt crisis that has crippled the continent for more than a year.
“The predominant view in markets is that this step ring-fences the three weaker economies of the euro area and therefore helps to avoid wider contagion,” said Klaus Regling, who manages the European Financial Stability Facility, the eurozone’s main bailout fund.
He said larger countries like Spain won’t be drawn into the crisis now, because financial markets now have a much better understanding of “the economic fundamentals in the different member states of the euro area.”
“The risk of contagion is much less than six or nine months ago,” Regling added.
Once a program for Portugal is in place, the EFSF, which issues bonds to finance rescue loans should be able to act within about ten days, Regling said.
Republican spending cuts will destroy the recovery! Republican spending cuts will revive the economy!
Get ready for more of that kind of partisan rhetoric as the clock ticks down to the next deadline on passage of a 2011 federal spending plan. On Thursday, Vice President Biden kicked off talks with House and Senate leaders of both parties.
Truth is the $61 billion in spending cuts passed by the House GOP last month — which will serve as a baseline in negotiations — might not be as harmful as Democrats predict or as helpful as Republicans claim.
Democrats are touting economic analyses that suggest a reduction of that magnitude could kill off hundreds of thousands of jobs over the next two years and mute an already slow economic recovery.
Until businesses start creating more jobs, government spending is needed to fill the void, the Democrats argue. They point to recommendations of debt commissions and fiscal hawks, who have urged caution at making too many cuts too soon.
Republicans, by contrast, are touting the views of economists who argue that making notable cuts now could encourage businesses to hire and invest because it would be a sign that lawmakers are taking steps toward reining in the country’s debt.
"The high unemployment we are experiencing now is due to low private investment rather than low government spending," Stanford University economist John Taylor wrote in a recent blog post. "By reducing some uncertainty and the threats of exploding debt, the House spending proposal will encourage private investment."
Who’s right? Who knows.
"Both sides are likely overstating their position, which is hardly surprising," said Stan Collender, veteran budget expert and founder of the blog "Capital Gains and Games."
Why it’s not so black and white
Democrats say it would be harmful to reduce government spending this year as much as the House GOP proposed.
In fact, the GOP bill likely will not reduce actual spending in 2011 by $61 billion. That’s because the bill would reduce $61 billion in so-called budget authority, which is the amount permitted but not necessarily the amount spent in a given year.
According to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, actual outlays this fiscal year under the bill would be $9 billion higher than they were in 2010, and only $17 billion lower than the CBO originally assumed for this year cheap credit report.
The bottom line is that some of the $61 billion reduction wouldn’t take effect until 2012.
Republicans, meanwhile, claim that the House GOP bill would boost confidence among businesses and investors, if not immediately then over time. That’s hard to verify, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable did not return calls for comment.
But presumably spending cuts would only boost confidence if they meaningfully improve the debt situation, which the House GOP bill will not.
It won’t reduce the deficit by $61 billion. And even if it did, that would represent less than 4% of the anticipated deficit for 2011 and less than 0.4% of the country’s $14.1 trillion total debt accrued to date.
How to really build confidence
What all fiscal experts believe could boost confidence, however, is a long-term, comprehensive debt reduction plan. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said as much in a Congressional hearing on Wednesday.
Bernanke said if the House GOP bill were passed as is in isolation it could cost the economy about 200,000 jobs over two years.
But, he added, "if you coupled that with a long-term plan that really shaved the deficit, I think that the overall effect could be much more favorable."
And economists at Goldman Sachs, who estimate that the $61 billion bill might reduce economic growth in the second and third quarters but didn’t offer job-loss estimates, noted that the debates over the timing of cuts and what could boost confidence might be remedied by imposing new budget rules.
"For instance, imposing hard, enforceable caps on discretionary spending levels for the next few years would likely be viewed by the market as a credible policy and could increase confidence in the sustainability of the U.S. fiscal position."
Right now, a bipartisan group of six senators is working to create a a 10-year debt-reduction plan of spending cuts and tax increases that they can sell to their colleagues. Expectations have been that they will be fighting an uphill battle.
The Federal Reserve said the labor market improved throughout the country early this year, driven by increasing retail sales and “solid growth” in manufacturing.
“Labor market conditions continued to strengthen modestly, with all Districts reporting some degree of improvement,” the Fed said today in its Beige Book report, an anecdotal account of the economy released two weeks before meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee. Its last survey, released Jan. 12, said the job market was “firming somewhat.”
Overall, the economy “continued to expand at a modest to moderate pace,” the central bank said in Washington. Eleven of the Fed’s 12 regional banks, including San Francisco and Philadelphia, described their regions as expanding, improving or experiencing moderate growth. Only Chicago reported growth “at a pace not quite as strong” as before.
Fed policy makers at their last meeting in January took a more optimistic view of the economy while maintaining their dissatisfaction with job growth. Policy makers, who are pressing ahead with their plan to buy $600 billion in Treasuries through June, raised projections for economic growth this year and made little change to forecasts after 2011 for unemployment and inflation.
The Beige Book reported that all districts except St. Louis “experienced solid growth in manufacturing production” and noted an increase in retail sales in every district except Richmond and Atlanta.
Extended Gains
Treasuries extended losses after the report. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 3.45 percent as of 2:22 p.m. in New York, from 3.39 percent yesterday. The yield on the 30- year Treasury bond rose to 4.54 from 4.48 yesterday.
Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, in congressional testimony today, said he’s still not satisfied with the strength of the recovery from a recession that the National Bureau of Economic Research describes as the longest since the Great Depression.
“The economy’s recovery is not firmly established, and we think monetary policy needs to be supportive,” Bernanke said in semiannual testimony to the House Financial Services Committee.
Responding to a question from Representative Nydia Velazquez, a New York Democrat, Bernanke said the Fed’s policy of keeping its benchmark rate near zero for an “extended period” helps provide support to the economy, “which in our judgment, it still needs.”
Economies Growing
The Beige Book’s characterization of growth was little changed from the report in January, when six Fed regions, including Atlanta and Chicago, showed economies growing “modestly to moderately,” and four, including New York and Boston, reported “improving” conditions.
The Commerce Department last week reduced its estimate of fourth-quarter economic growth to a 2.8 percent annual pace from 3.2 percent as state and local governments made deeper cuts in spending. Consumer purchases rose at a 4.1 percent pace, the most since 2006, providing a boost for retailers.
Last week Target Corp., the second-largest U.S. discount retailer, projected sales at stores open at least a year may rise as much as 5 percent this year, after a 2.1 percent gain the prior period.
“Retail spending strengthened compared with a year ago across all Districts except Richmond and Atlanta,” today’s report said, while noting that winter weather “had a negative impact on retail activity” in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Kansas City and Dallas.
Beige Book
The Beige Book report released today reflects information collected on or before Feb. 18 and summarized by the Atlanta Fed.
“The Boston, Cleveland, Minneapolis, and Dallas Districts cited noticeable improvements in the manufacturing sector, and the Boston and Cleveland Districts also observed increased labor demand in the health-care and medical sectors,” today’s the report said.
The Labor Department will report March 4 that the economy added 190,000 jobs in February, the most since May 2010 when the government was hiring to conduct the decennial census, according to the median forecast of a Bloomberg News survey. The unemployment rate will rise to 9.1 percent.
“Until we see a sustained period of stronger job creation, we cannot consider the recovery to be truly established,” Bernanke said this week.
The chairman repeated his call for lawmakers to adopt a long-term plan to reduce the federal government’s debt, and said the Fed won’t buy state debt to alleviate any funding crunch, even as it’s “possible” that U.S. states could pose a risk to the financial system.
Real Estate
The Beige Book report described the real estate market as “varied, but overall sales and construction remained at low levels across all districts.”
Four Fed districts, including Dallas and Boston, described the manufacturing outlook as “optimistic” and four, including Philadelphia and Atlanta, reported “more rapid improvement in factory orders.”
Manufacturing in the U.S. grew in February at the fastest pace in almost seven years, driven by gains in orders, employment and exports that signal factories will continue to propel the expansion.
The Institute for Supply Management’s factory index increased to 61.4, exceeding the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News and the highest level since May 2004, the Tempe, Arizona-based group said yesterday.
Auto dealers are seeing improved demand. General Motors Co. yesterday said U.S. sales of its four remaining brands rose 49 percent in February, topping analysts’ estimates.
Company Profits
Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s quarterly profit rose 43 percent to the highest since 2007, boosted in part by Chairman Warren Buffett’s purchase last year of Burlington Northern Santa Fe, the second biggest railroad in the United States. Economic expansion in the U.S. fueled profit gains at the freight-hauling unit in 2010.
The improvement in the job market has not translated to pay increases, the report said, describing wage pressures as “minimal across all Districts.”
The report noted that “non-wage input costs increased for manufacturers and retailers” and that many manufacturers “reported having greater ability to pass through higher input costs to customers.”
“Retailers in some Districts mentioned they had implemented price increases or were anticipating such action in the next few months,” the Fed said.
Price Gauge
The Fed’s preferred price gauge, which excludes food and fuel, rose 0.8 percent in January from a year earlier, matching December’s year-over-year gain, the lowest in five decades of record-keeping. Fed officials aim for long-run overall inflation of 1.6 percent to 2 percent.
Oil and crop prices have soared even as core inflation has remained low. The price of gasoline, among the most visible expenses consumers, has risen 25 percent in the last year, according to an index from the American Automobile Association.
Experience with such price gains in recent decades, along with currently stable labor costs, suggests a “temporary and relatively modest increase in U.S. consumer price inflation,” Bernanke told Congress today.
Farmland values also are rising as commodities soar. A report last month from the Chicago Fed showed Midwest farmland values rising 12 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier. The Kansas City Fed has recorded cropland prices nearly 20 percent above year-earlier levels in Kansas and Nebraska.
Kansas City Fed President Thomas Hoenig warned Feb. 17 that the surge in farmland prices may be part of an “unsustainable bubble.”
The Fed said today that for now, “strong commodity prices were benefitting producers” of many crops, even as there were reports “of rising input prices, particularly in fertilizer and feed prices.”
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