Muddy Waters took its name from a Chinese proverb about fishing in unclear waters. It doesn’t get much cloudier than a company whose operations span Uruguayan dairy farming, California tomato-processing and flour-milling in Ghana. That makes the shortseller’s long-awaited report on Olam, the Singapore commodities trader, equally hard to assess. But the report, now published online, does raise questions to which Olam must respond.

The claims include typical accounting eyebrow-raisers, such as frequent revisions that rarely affect profits and potentially curious moves in cash balances. Muddy Waters also claims that Olam’s profits are bolstered by paper gains and the use of derivatives recorded at modelled, not market, prices. Capital spending it describes as “a black hole”. Olam has rejected the claims, saying that there was “no substance” in the broad allegations and that it would respond in further detail. It filed a defamation claim in the Singapore high court last week over similar comments by Carson Block, Muddy Waters’ research director, at a recent presentation in London.

Not all the report’s claims seem to merit the same attention from Olam. The paper gains are fairly well-understood by Olam’s followers. Derivatives marked to models exist the world over. Investors can choose to avoid derivatives traders if they like. But Olam should address the restatements and its capex in far more detail. Better understanding of niche commodity trading would be generally helpful.