ASA Economist Breaks Down the September WASDE for U.S. Soy

By Jacquie Holland • ASA Chief Economist

The September 2024 WASDE report from USDA was much less exciting than the prior month's report-which was good news for soybean markets that were dreading a potential yield uptick ahead of the report's release. Futures prices for all three soy products trimmed back pre-report gains slightly following the report's release but continued to trade higher into the afternoon trading session, meaning that the report was widely viewed as a neutral market event.

USDA left 2024 yield and harvested acreage estimates for U.S. soybeans unchanged from last month's report at 53.2 bpa and 86.3 million acres, respectively. Production was trimmed slightly (a meager 3 million bushels), but no major supply changes were published that could've impacted prices.

But, even on the usage side of the U.S. soybean balance sheet, USDA kept mostly quiet. About 5 million bushels were added to 2023/24 crush volumes and 2 million bushels were added to 2024/25 residual volumes, tightening both 2023/24 and 2024/25 ending soybean stocks slightly.

Soybean futures prices had been trading up $0.03-$0.07/bushel ahead of the report's release. The slightly updated figures pared back a penny or two of those gains, but futures prices continued to trade higher in the report aftermath.

The real excitement in Thursday's reports came from the 2023 soy oil balance sheet. The additional crushed soybeans plus more imports and higher extraction rates added 210 million pounds of soy oil to 2023/24 supplies. Usage for biodiesel (100M lb) and food, feed, and other uses (100M lb) consumed most of the extra oil USDA found in the 2023 marketing year.

Even with a minor uptick (10 million lbs) in ending stocks, the additional 200 million pounds of 2023/24 usage helped to tighten the stocks-to-use ratio for soy oil by 0.1% to 5.8%.

The increase to 2023/24 ending stocks pushed up 2024/25 beginning stocks slightly, but USDA left the rest of the 2024/25 soy oil balance sheet alone this month so there were no major changes to 2024/25 ending stocks.

Similar to soybean futures prices, soy oil pared back some of their early morning gains but continued to trade about $0.40/bushel higher after the report's release.

Since the 2023 soy crush was increased, so too was 2023 soymeal production. USDA added 150,000 short tons of soymeal production to 2023 estimates. However, ending stocks were left unchanged as USDA estimated that all the new production was consumed domestically, leaving ending stocks unchanged at 400,000 short tons.

USDA made no other changes to the 2024/25 soymeal balance sheet. Soymeal futures had been trading higher prior to the report's release but trimmed back gains slightly following the report.

Read the full September WASDE report here.