Past research shows that prices move in response to World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) reports immediately prior to and after a report. This research develops trading models based on knowing the next WASDE report in advance. This should help traders evaluate investments to predict information contained within the report and in determining how best to use such forecasts. The price-forecasting models use regressions against the ratios of ending stocks to use. Results show a steady increasing return to trading over the report month. The highest returns are produced by trading during the growing and harvest seasons.

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of situation and outlook information from World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) in corn and soybean futures markets over the period 1985 to 2006. Results indicate that WASDE reports containing National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) crop production estimates and other domestic and international situation and outlook information have the largest impact; causing return variance on report sessions to be 7.38 times greater than normal return variance in corn futures and 6.87 times greater than normal return variance in soybean futures. WASDE reports limited to international situation information and domestic and international outlook information have a smaller impact. The results show that the impact of WASDE reports has increased over time.