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Early Morning Update - January 13, 2025

By: Dairy Team - Chicago, Dairy Chicago

 

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The first full week of 2025 started with bullish enthusiasm and ended with a sharp sell-off for Class III and Cheese. New contract highs were established for the contract months of February thru April early last week but stability on spot cheese turned to weakness by Friday. The resulting sell-off has February Class III about a dollar lower than where it traded last Tuesday this morning. And the Class III price weakness Friday came with increasing trade volume and rising open interest (2,070 trades, open interest up 390). There’s been a good two-sided market trade so far this year, but Friday was marked by new selling. Cheese futures traded 775 contracts and open interest increased by just 33 contracts as nearby selling appeared to be driven by long-liquidation.

Whatever the case, such a swift, precipitous decline in futures prices often carry with them a permanent mark on trader sentiment. Its as if we all easily accept price weakness while price strength is first viewed with skepticism. Whatever the psychological aspect at play, spot cheese sellers (particularly) block were more aggressive to close out last week. If buyer interest slows, it doesn’t take 50 loads to drop the market.

That’s an important point this morning, because we don’t think there are 50 loads out there to come to the exchange. In fact, last week’s selloff -outside of likely causing some would-be buyers to stand away from the market for now – hasn’t changed the overriding current market dynamics. It will be some time before the US cheesemakers can build inventories at a more normal pace. We look for a lower Class III and Cheese start on some follow-thru selling from Friday.

Stable spot butter action Friday caused a reprieve in butter futures strength seen last week. Futures have run well ahead of spot for some time now and may be a driving feature of recent spot strength. The key point from last week is that the spot price eclipsed rather well-established 6-week high price print of $258.000. The market could fail here, but our view is that there may be more upside to spot here in January as the market works to correct the +70 cent decline from late last year. We look for a mixed early trade today.

NFDM weakened Friday and this time did so on some volume. Over 600 contracts changed hands and open interest increased by 340 contracts. There’s some new selling interest in this market and it showed on Friday. While we won’t argue with weakness when it develops – especially given global prices substantially lower than US – we will note that last week marked the first time we’ve made a new price low – on at least some of the nearby contracts – since September.

The big volume and jump in open interest could be the start of a bigger decline for futures, but don’t blindly make that assumption. The counter-argument is that we’re in some sort of “bear trap” in which new sellers capitulated into new shorts giving up all thoughts of further price strength. We’ll now if this hypothesis holds water by the end of this week likely as “bear traps” often occur rather quickly. The longer the market stays down, the less likely market bears are being trapped by anything.

  • Dairy

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