The USDA depletes the world’s vegetable oil stocks

Walter Cronin, White River’s President & Co-Founder, provides market commentary in his latest Market Report.

A hallmark of USDA reports is measured language. I am not certain why the USDA maintains this vocabulary equilibrium but I suspect the economists who analyze and forecast grain, oilseed, and livestock supply and demand balance sheets understand their ability to influence global markets. While private analysts, like the team at OIL WORLD for instance, can influence traders’ views of global supply and demand to a certain extent, it really is the USDA economists who provide the global trade with key statistical and written forecasts (in large part due to their US taxpayer funded infinite resources that allow their work to be freely accessed by global traders).

Imagine my surprise then when I read my favorite monthly USDA report, Oilseeds: World Markets and Trade, and found this verb in the May 2024 report: deplete. Deplete is a very active verb and contains an ominous tone that other verbs like reduce or decrease do not. Deplete suggests that a stored resource, in this regard an agricultural commodity, is going away and baby it is NOT coming back.

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