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Early Morning Update - October 24, 2023

By: Dairy Team - Chicago, Dairy Chicago

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Class III and Cheese futures slumped Monday as the market continues to work off last week’s rally with a corrective look to things. The price of spot block cheese also edged lower to kick off this wee, but the take-away from yesterday was the closing of the block/barrel spread. Now at 3 cents, the block/barrel spread here in the mid-$1.70s is giving the impression that the ‘pot is right’. Mid-$1.70s is, for now, likely an area where the market can comfortably clear product. It’s also the reason the market chipped away at some of the nearby futures premium Monday.

 

While block cheese appears to be working out some sort of equilibrium price level here in the $1.70s, we note continued anecdotal comments that the barrel market is more snug today. Perhaps the market is gearing up to invert and put the price of barrel cheese over blocks for a period. We shall see. Nevertheless, futures need something more bullish to stir upside. We don’t have that this morning, so we’ll call these markets mixed early.

 

We do get the September Cold Storage report tomorrow afternoon, which will shed some light on demand back in September. We don’t expect any big shift for cheese, up 0.4% from last year compared to 0.5% in August. Given the relatively weak milk production and the record high butter price I have butter stocks going from being up 3.9% YoY in August to -1.1% in September.

 

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While Class III Milk tracked lower Monday, Class IV got a boost amid an uptick in both spot butter and spot NFDM. We are in the “seasonal peak” timeframe, but this butter market has staying power. December butter acquiesced and finally made a new high yesterday closing at $282.000. Meanwhile, the January to December 2024 pack average remains sub-$250.000 at $247.975. Good two sided trading around this level ought to continue. Trading volume yesterday left something to be desired overall with just 72 contracts changing hands in the open market. The market will likely consolidate here in the short-term as the trade bides their time on 2024 with thoughts that a significant drop in the price of butter is nearby.

 

Just over 100 NFDM contracts traded Monday, which also left something to be desired. The NFDM futures market had a significant rally from eh bottom established back in early September, but buy side is not unlimited. We’ve remarked that end-user buying was a key feature over the last month and that sell side liquidity was rather light. This was really the case globally in our opinion. With January to December NFDM at $134.575 as of yesterday’s settlement, there is enough meat on the bone there for now. Perhaps another wave of buy side interest will underpin prices, but for now we expect a mixed to lower trade for 2024. Spot may continue to work higher, but we expect that will serve to flatten the curve for now.

 

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While inflation feels a little more under control lately, we thought we’d take a moment to look at history. The run from 78-80 was driven by food (mostly beef as we were approaching the low point in the cattle cycle), energy (OPEC raised prices) and mortgage rates (they calculated housing CPI different back then and 30 year fixed rate was directly part of the equation, now they do it different). Soaring interest rates, high energy costs, and inflation of all goods and services still increasing and may continue to slow the economy, but the above is a reminder that inflation can heat back up quickly.

  • Dairy

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