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Early Morning Update - June 11, 2024

By: Dairy Team - Chicago, Dairy Chicago

 

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Class III and Cheese futures rallied strong to start the week as cheese buyers stepped back into the spot market. Barrels were up 1.25 cents to 1.9675 and blocks were up 5.25 to 1.8975. Cheese is being cleared at these levels, which we’ve commented is overall supportive of both spot and futures despite a nice slug of available fresh product over the past few weeks. We still hear of available fresh blocks so sellers may have simply stepped back yesterday to see if the buyers would bid higher, but we hear both barrel cheese and Mozzarella are rather tight.

The futures board reacted by climbing back up to the highs we saw last week on improved volume and rising open interest. July to October Cheese futures are back over $2.00 as the relative strength in spot mingles with hot weather out west, overall bullish technicals and a speculative community that wants to be long Class III and Cheese in a summer market. This is to say nothing of the uncertain and rather unclear Bird Flu outbreak, which seems to be both tightening available milk in some sheds and widely under-reported. Regardless of the overall impact going forward, the perception of problems on dairy farms due to Bird Flu remains an underpinning feature.

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Butter futures got even quieter Monday if you can believe it. Just 25 contracts traded as the spot price slumped 1.25 cents on 6 trades. Big bull markets need to be fed and while there is ample worry about milk and cream availability, making – and rejecting – new price highs is not bullish. We’ve often thought what is the hard trade in butter right now. Buying a $3.00 carry is hard, but selling into a market everyone seems to think can go to $4.00/lb. is harder in our opinion. At some point more upside risk may be in the cards and the $4.00 folks will eventually be right. But for now the price behavior is choppy sideways and we seem to be doing okay on building butter inventories. In the midst of this, market direction was stunted Monday.

NFDM futures were also rather “stunted” on Monday. A mixed trade on light volume revealed a small open interest increase (+11 contracts on just 68 trads). This isn’t summer doldrums – this is a market quietly seeking better direction. Sentiment is broadly stable to bearish and price action is broadly stable to more bullish. We need to see better alignment on both to get a more clear direction. Spot sat steady at $119.500 on zero trades yesterday.

National corn planting progress rose from 91% to 95% complete this week, down from 98% last year but even with the five-year average pace; emergence of the crop rose from 74% to 85% done, down from 91% LY but above the 84% 5YA. Condition ratings fell a point to 74% good/excellent, up from 61% LY and the 66% 5YA. Soybean planting advanced from 78 to 87% done, behind 95% LY but above the 84% 5YA, with emergence up from 55% to 70%, below 83% LY but above the 66% 5YA. Condition ratings initially came in at 72% g/ex, above 59% LY and the 63% 5YA.

  • Dairy

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