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Early Morning Update - December 15, 2023

By: Dairy Team - Chicago, Dairy Chicago

 

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Cheese sellers erased all of Wednesday’s spot gains yesterday, which weighted on both Class III and Cheese futures well into Q2 2024. Futures trading volumes were heavy yesterday with just over 2,000 Class III and over 1,000 Cheese futures changing hands. Open interest was up 279 and 317, respectively. New pricing lows were made for Q1 yesterday as well as the market softens in a relatively orderly fashion. This is not a knock down, drag out pummeling of futures. It’s a futures market that is tip-toe lower seemingly somewhat unsure of itself.

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A quick look around points to the spot market as the most bearish feature futures traders are leaning on. Dry whey futures were also weaker yesterday. And Dairy Market News (DMN) reported weak anecdotal export demand along with  weak domestic demand from food service. But spot is driving nearby trading.  That said, global prices remain aloft, milk production remains more or less “flat”, and from our vantage point it would seem that current data suggests the US cheese price is somewhere between 15-20 cents undervalued. Nearby futures were lower overnight and we’ll likely start this morning lower, but look for a good two-sided trade to develop as the market looks forward to Monday’s release of the November Milk Production report.

The USDA will release the November Milk Production report next week and we're expect headline production will be down 0.2% from last year. We could get a surprise with cow numbers moving higher, but I’m still plugging in a 1,000 head drop between October and November which would leave the herd down 0.4% YoY. Production per cow was likely still weak and only up 0.1% YoY.

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We don’t have all of the fat/protein content data for November yet, but all of the FMMOs that have reported data are well above last year for both, which would put component adjusted production up 0.5% to 1% from last year.

What goes down must come up? That was the story for Butter futures Thursday as a burst of buying energy pushed futures mostly 1-1.3 cents higher. The Q2 pack traded 50x at $252.000. January to December right on that big, round, comfortable number of $250.200 and spot butter stopped going down closing unchanged at $246.000. There continues to be a good two-sided trade for 2024 contracts around current levels and we don’t think that changes today.

$246.000 is an interesting number. For the first half of this year, the butter market had resistance more or less right at that number – did not trade higher. Now, after a wild second half, that old resistance level we couldn’t break above earlier this year has, at least for a day, become support (as seen on the monthly spot butter chart below). Supply/demand fundamentals rule the roost and can absolutely bludgeon technical levels of support, but given the chart below we wouldn’t be surprised to see the market get held up around current levels for a few days.

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NFDM futures were mostly higher Thursday despite spot weakness. Spot NFDM fell 0.75 to $116.500, but the market is not really making any new ground to the downside. In fact, both spot and futures are best characterized as sideways for now. 2024 NFDM are just below $130.000, but as we’ve said for weeks in this report - $130.000 seems to be a sticking point for the calendar pack. End-user buying remains a key feature – especially for Q1 and Q2 - but depleted of worry. We look for a mixed start to the day.

Next Tuesday we’ll get the last GDT auction event of 2023. SGX futures have generally been too bullish relative to the actual prices. The GDT price index has fallen short of futures prices over the last three auctions. Currently futures are pricing in a 3.7% increase for the GDT index. The GDT pulse auction on Tuesday was up 2% for WMP and down 0.4% for SMP prices.

Weather conditions in New Zealand have been deteriorating recently as a result of mixed weather conditions. The South Island has been experiencing drought while the North Island has been experiencing some drought in part of the island.

 

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