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Early Morning Update - October 3, 2024

By: Dairy Team - Chicago, Dairy Chicago

 

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The dairy complex more or less slumped Wednesday as Dry Whey was the only market to close steady/higher as spot opened and closed unchanged at 60.25 cents. Spot cheese continued to see good selling pressure, which dropped the price of block cheese 5.25 cents to $2.0275. Barrel cheese got a 0.75 cent bump to $2.1525. Neither market traded.

Nearby Class III and Cheese futures sold off on the news, but held the low price prints of the week established on Monday. That changed for the November contract overnight as follow-thru selling is the order of the morning with $22.00 (November) - an area of psychological support – just below. 2025 contracts we’re rather stable with choppy trading yesterday as budget-setting buyers continue to eye sub-$2.00 cheese pricing equivalents next year.

So we have a few extra loads of cheese that have now adjusted market prices quite nicely (from a buyers perspective) and the futures market has acquiesced to this development trying to maintain some sort of alignment with spot action. But that doesn’t tell us where we’re going. It’s possible all the holiday buying holes are filled and demand has cooled enough to allow prices to perpetually drift around current levels, but we don’t think so. You don’t get over $2.00 cheese without some problems in the supply chain and it seems to us that the trade has a modest dose of don’t catch a falling knife sentiment. Given the relative tightness of cheese and lack of inventory, our opinion is that when “don’t catch a falling knife” sentiment morphs into “fear of missing out” on the bid side, the risk shifts back to the upside for a period of time.

Speaking of upside risk, they say the ocean floor is littered with charts of support that failed, but we wonder if we’re not going to get a bump to the spot butter market. The rout has come on fast and furious and while we largely expect to see more downside for butter, a little stability to spot price may be ahead. The chart below is a weekly look at Spot Butter, revealing yesterday’s  7 cent drop puts the spot price right along a trendline. Again this could fail as supply/demand – and fear and greed – drive these markets. But it’s worth noting as we wrestle with supply/demand expectations. US Q4 butter supply has to come in much higher than expected or demand has to be much weaker than expected because sub-$3.00 butter isn't compatible with our balance table - at least not with the pricing relationship that was in place in 2022/2023

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The NFDM market remains in “correction mode” as spot fell another quarter penny on 2 trades. We hear offers in the country below $1.35, so our take is that more downside for the spot market is likely in the offing short-term. Perhaps the market wants to get back to $1.28-$1.30 before reestablishing a more forceful bid. We shall see. But with Bird flu spreading like wildfire in CA, we have to imagine that production will be compromised to some extent. To date, that has yet to underpin the dairy trade broadly. Perhaps the reason for this is that the perception is that we have this more “under control” than we did back in March. Producers have more understanding and thus quicker reaction times to help their situation at their disposal. But a sick cow is a sick cow is a sick cow. God bless anyone who has had to deal with Bird Flu this year – what a challenge.

  • Dairy

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