Darrel Good August Quotations

With the growing season coming to an end, most observers believe that the South American crop will be record large, with more uncertainty about the Argentine crop than the Brazilian crop. U.S. soybean oil stocks at the end of the most recent reporting month--January 2006--were estimated at 2.477 billion pounds, nearly 60 percent larger than stocks of a year ago. Stocks were at the highest level since August 2002.

The forecasting comparisons for soybeans were somewhat sensitive to the measure of forecast accuracy considered. One measure showed that private market forecasts were more accurate than USDA forecasts for August regardless of the time period considered. Another measure showed just the opposite.