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Early Morning Update - November 12, 2024

By: Dairy Team - Chicago, Dairy Chicago

 

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The USDA will release their Federal Order reform final decision today setting the stage for the future of dairy pricing. USDA will then hold a producer referendum (Dec/Jan) after which a final rule will be published in the Federal Register 30 days after the referendum. We will notify you when we have word today.

There’s an old opinion that markets tend to be a bit more negative on Monday’s. Call it a “case of the Monday’s”. That was true for Class III and Cheese futures yesterday, which extended losses from last week early. Bearish sentiment or sentiment that is worried about more downside has gripped the market. Price weakness continued after spot, which saw an 8 cent drop in barrel cheese – back under $1.70 for the first time since mid-April. Block cheese dropped a penny to $1.7100. Class III and Cheese futures saw good volume along with the weakness with over 2,600 Class III and over 700 Cheese contracts changing hands. And open interest increased by about 150 contracts each. 2025 Class III contracts closed just below $19.00 for the first time since back in August and 2025 Cheese futures finished at $1.8590.

We like to display our experience and knowledge (where available) in this morning comment, but for the life of us we’re having trouble coming up with a story for $1.68 barrel cheese. We’ll go with poor food service demand. We’ll also say that markets tend to overdo direction (see $2.6225 barrel cheese on Wednesday September 18). Based on the current state of supply/demand – even considering new plant capacity – we think spot cheese prices have likely done enough “overshooting the mark” to the downside. That said, if everyone has their year-end needs covered and cheese inventories are built into December perhaps the market can trade around the $1.70 mark longer. We expect Class III and Cheese to start today more mixed.

While butter continues to feel heavy and spot continued to show offers with no trades Monday, spot NFDM quietly posted a new 2024 high price print closing at $1.4000 on 8 trades (3 bids and 3 offers left on the board). A good two-sided spot NFDM trade revealed buyers are the aggressors here as global powder prices tick higher and lower cost inventories south of the boarder continue to whittle away. Still, there’s been a lot of choppy trading for NFDM and this $1.40 level proved to be resistance before. Although we see more upside risk than downside presently. We won’t be surprised by a more mixed trade today.

While NFDM gained ~1-2 cents per month across the board, Butter fell by a similar amount. 341 Butter futures changed hands and open interest rose by 190 contracts as the trade hacked away at the forward curve premium amid a quietly stable spot market. If the trade isn’t leaning on lack of bids in the spot market, they’re focused on heavy cream availability and dwindling seasonal demand. Perhaps some of that cream will be turned into unsalted 82% butter for the export market, which would be supportive of butter prices as we move into 2025, but the market isn’t necessarily counting on that today. We expect more mixed to lower trading for butter this morning.

  • Dairy

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