CME Cash Market Summary
Daily CME spot dairy market price summary
Dairy Team - Chicago
- Dairy
Early Morning Update - August 13, 2024
By: Dairy Team - Chicago, Dairy Chicago
Block cheese eked out a new 2024 high price yesterday closing up 4.25 cents at $2.00. Few people seemed to comment on that because barrel cheese gained 8.5 cents to close at a 2-month high. The spot call drove the Class III and Cheese futures rally that resulted in new Q4 high price prints for both products (September contracts were higher back in July). Volume and open interest gains occurred as both markets have seen a remarkable change in direction over the past week. Just one week ago, September Class III was $1.50/cwt lower than it is this morning.
Although we kicked off this week with strong spot action, activity was light. Just 2 block changed hands yesterday and barrels gained that 8.5 cents on bids alone. The market action is bullish, but as we said yesterday: buyers taking a wait-and-see approach may be forced into an I-need-to-get-something-bought approach seasonally. That said, we do expect sellers to continue to bring loads for sale during the spot call – we’re just less certain they’ll bring any material weight to spot prices.
We hear barrels are quite tight and blocks also snug but don’t be surprised if some cheese comes to the exchange with this spot price strength so far this week. That can cause some increased volatility short-term for futures but both the fundamental and technical aspects of these markets still seem to point to higher prices forthcoming. And the rub on a market like this is that the seeds of current market dynamics were likely sown over the past 6-12 months in that underwhelming milk and cheddar production is running headlong into improved (but by no means strong historically speaking) cheese demand.
The real risk we see for markets now is that buyers chewed through inventory over the past few months (or have been buying hand to mouth as demand appears wonky) and remain under-covered in this snug fresh cheese environment heading into unknown – but presumably solid – fall demand.
Futures buying remained relatively healthy yesterday in butter, particularly in Dec24-Mar25 with 185 contracts trading overall. Open interest only rose by 8 contracts as we saw Oct-Nov open interest fall again. Spot butter had been trending steadily lower for most of august until yesterday when buyers pushed prices 4.25 cents higher to monthly highs. There was plenty of butter available as 17 loads traded. We’ll likely continue to see that as butter production has come out better than expected this year and up until recently, cream was available.
After losing 4 cents on spot last week, nonfat recovered 1.5 cents yesterday on zero trades. Futures volume was steady with 151 contracts trading with most of that seen in Q4 as prices rose steady. CME NFDM is likely getting some support from global news with an Algeria tender being announced today and higher GDT Pulse prices. Fonterra’s C2 WMP increased 1.6% to $3.260/MT and C2 SMP increased 2.4% to $2,550 ($1.156/lb). CME nonfat prices remain uncompetitive in asian markets.
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CME Cash Market Summary
Daily CME spot dairy market price summary
Dairy Team - Chicago
- Dairy
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