MILK
Class III futures just could not find any aggressive buyer interest even though block cheese price increased. Just last week, futures moved according to the movement of blocks. Today, that was irrelevant as the attitude is more bearish. Class IV should have moved lower based on the large decline of butter, but the opposite was true. Traders are disregarding daily price movement in order to focus on the longer-term potential. USDA released the November Milk Production report which showed milk production in the top 24 states up 1.4% from a year ago. Production per cow was strong at 1,956 pounds, an increase of 17 pounds over November 2021. Cow numbers increased 1,000 head from October totaling 8.94 million head. Milk production in the U.S. increased 1.3% from a year ago at 18.3 billion pounds. Production per cow averaged 1,937 pounds, an increase of 17 pounds from a year ago. Cow numbers totaled 9.42 million head, up 1,000 head from October. This is the fifth consecutive month of milk production exceeding the previous year. Eight of the top 24 states showed production declines from a year ago. These states were: Florida, down 10.8%; New Mexico down 4.3%; Virginia declined 3.4%; Illinois declined 2.9%; Washington declined 2.0%; Utah declined 1.7% with both California and Oregon down 0.5%. The largest gains were seen in Georgia with an increase 13.1% followed by South Dakota with a gain of 6.3%. The rest of the states with gains had gains of less than 4%.
AVERAGE CLASS III PRICES
| 3 Month: | $19.49 |
| 6 Month: | $19.46 |
| 9 Month: | $19.66 |
| 12 Month: | $19.83 |
CHEESE
Choppiness will continue as the market moves through the final two weeks of the year. Holiday orders are shipped and filled with buyers and sellers positioning themselves for the end of the year. Lower prices will bring buyers in to purchase for rebuilding aging programs. However, there may not be aggressive purchasing to deliberately build inventory.
BUTTER
There have been some huge price swings both up and down over the past two weeks. It is a mystery as to why price can frequently jump or fall that much. Generally, that will set in motion a change in trend, but we are seeing history in the making which may become more common place in the future.
OUTSIDE MARKETS SUMMARY
March corn declined 5.75 cents ending at $6.4725. January soybeans fell 19.25 cents ending at $14.6075 with January soybean meal down $13.90 per ton closing at $449.10. March wheat declined 5 cent6s closing at $7.4850. December live cattle gained $0.22 closing at $155.27. January crude oil gained $0.90 ending at $75.19 per barrel. The Dow declined 163 points closing at 32,758 while the Nasdaq declined 159 points closing at 10,546.
