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Early Morning Update - January 21, 2025

By: Dairy Team - Chicago, Dairy Chicago

 

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Yesterday, the United States observed Martin Luther King Jr. Day, honoring the civil rights leader, while simultaneously inaugurating the 47th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. The markets were closed yesterday in observance of the federal holiday.

The GDT auction this morning was weaker than we expected finishing down 1.4% overall versus our pre-auction estimate of a 1.9% increase (largely supported by SGX futures action leading up to the auction). SMP and WMP weakness drove the lower result as both fell just over 2% from last event. SMP is trading in the low-$1.20s. US NFDM futures are slightly weaker on the news this morning, but still a dime or better relative to global prices. If there is a market that has priced of its own accord these days it is Nonfat Dry Milk.

In data received over the weekend, Chinese imports were much stronger than expected with Chinese milk equivalent imports for December up 30.6% from the prior year compared to the forecast of flat to +5%. It looks like some of the product that would clear through customers in November got pushed into December, but this bucks the trend of late.

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Class III and Cheese traded in a neutral 1.80-1.90 range last week as the spot market saw two-sided trading. Although we have plenty or slated new cheddar plant capacity coming online in 2025, this $1.80-$1.90 market was driven in large part due to a lack of fresh inventory in some cases and/or a perceived lack of fresh inventory. It wills take some time to rebuild cheese inventories and in the midst of that even small gyrations in demand can have, in some cases, an outsized impact on price. For now, the market appears to be comfortable clearing product around the $1.90 mark.

Class III open interest was up 141 contracts on lower volume (1,023 contracts), with most of the trading occurring in the nearby months. The CFTC report from Friday revealed a continued building of long positions by managed money. The last time they had this long of a position was just before we saw $23 milk.

Whey has traded in a flat range for the past two weeks, remaining in the low to mid 70s. Protein demand is still strong with more people in the gyms as many new years resolutions still underway (mine are not). While steady demand is keeping prices elevated, we have seen contracts beyond the near-term trading lower.

Below is a chart showing the forward curve from last week vs. one month ago. The market is keeping prices elevated here with the rest of the curve trading lower, as the trade is aware of new supply forthcoming with new cheese plants. What the trade is more uncertain of today is the demand side of the equation in 2025. 2024 was a go-go high value protein explosion in demand. Will that continue in 2025?

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The new year butter rally faltered last week as sellers continue to have ample product to supply the spot market (and the market in the country). Spot butter traded down 8.25 cents last week, which has drawn in more aggressive futures selling. Futures fell Friday on moderate volume of 315 and open interest increased by 158 contracts indicating new sellers were active Friday. Such a dynamic looks to continue at least early today. And GDT auction results won’t help.

NFDM futures traded mostly lower on Friday as well despite the spot price gaining 0.50 cent.  As we said last week, the weight of the world seems to be apply modest pressure to the NFDM futures forward curve almost daily. In doing so, the market is moved into a more inverted or backwardated structure. Backwardated structures are bullish. The very best sale is now spot (at least until sometime in Q3 maybe). If spot doesn’t attract a continual stream of sell side interest here, we will worry less about global price weakness and more about issues right here in the US. And you should too.

For the week ahead, NDPSR will be released on Thursday, delayed one day due to the holiday. We also have US milk production and cold storage on Friday. It will be interesting to see how California fared in the month of December. Bird-flu has tapered in the rest of the country, and many states have fully recovered. We’ll keep you posted with our forecasts coming soon.

  • Dairy

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