CME Cash Market Summary
Daily CME spot dairy market price summary
Dairy Team - Chicago
- Dairy
Early Morning Update - March 14, 2024
By: Dairy Team - Chicago, Dairy Chicago
The Class III and Cheese bidding started late Tuesday night and carried over into Wednesday’s trade as concerns grow over spreading disease in cattle down in the panhandle of Texas. We’ve heard some sort of pathogen as reports are mixed and evolving rather quickly. Reports are that ~8-10% of the herd of affected herds are impacted. Some cows have total loss, end up going to beef, some cows are bouncing back within a couple weeks. The big questions are how accurate are those numbers above and can/will this spread to other parts of the country. Also the downstream effects on pregnancy on those affected (pregnancy, etc.). That unknown gave some traders the green light to shoot-first-ask-questions-later as both new buying and short-covering lifted both Class III and Cheese – and kept prices firm despite a lackluster spot session at a big discount to futures.
Spot barrel cheese gained a penny and blocks finished unchanged on the day as the low 1.40s is representative of the current supply/demand dynamic. That said, futures have led rallies in spot in the past and this is a possible unintended consequence of a firm futures price dynamic this morning. As the spot/futures carry gets blown out (nearby futures well above spot) opportunity develops for traders to buy physical product during spot session and sell nearby futures. In theory – and in practice – they let profit come from the convergence between spot/futures over the next 30-60 days depending on the futures months they sell. They still have to find a home for cheese and this doesn’t remove the weak demand dynamic to the market – but it can cause a stir on the spot cheese market short-term.
The counter-argument of course is that we ought to be highly skeptical of a massive disease outbreak that showed up in the markets basically overnight. We don’t want to diminish the issue at hand and we understand that things can get worse. But we also understand that the markets are driven by smart human insights and vulnerable to weak human emotion. We've heard of TB, among many other theories, as to what is happening in the Panhandle. There were 3 farms quarantined in that area, however it can be difficult for TB to spread farm to farm.
Blocks and barrels were weaker than forecast while butter was a little stronger than expected. NFDM and dry whey were both just slightly stronger than forecast. I have March Class III at $16.32 and Class IV at $20.05.
Disease concerns did little to deter butter/nfdm as butter futures activity was lackluster after a 3/4th of a cent rise in spot butter prices as it sits 1 cent off the nearly 4 months highs @ $2.85. A stronger NDPSR print gave way to nearby April trading nearly 4 cents higher as the rest of the curve was mostly supported with only 61 contracts trading.
Nonfat volume picked up from the low levels on Tuesday with 314 contracts trading as prices were slightly higher in nearby months but mostly weaker in deferred months. Futures have steady relatively steady this last week after the sell off seen in the end of February so many likely are looking to next weeks GDT for direction.
- Dairy
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CME Cash Market Summary
Daily CME spot dairy market price summary
Dairy Team - Chicago
- Dairy
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