MILK
Milk prices traded lower once again Friday with double digit losses seen in all nearby contract months. Although firm pressure developed in remaining 2024 and early 2025 contract months, the ability to pull prices well off of session lows at the end of the trading session is seen as a significant improvement. November Class III milk future settled at $21.44 per cwt following at 39 cent per cwt loss at the end of the session. Early trade was seen with prices near 60 cents lower as continued concern about current milk production levels and uncertainty of short-term dairy product demand growth through the next couple of months. Spot October contracts closed at $22.56 per cwt, with a 33 cent per cwt daily loss.
AVERAGE CLASS III PRICES
| 3 Month: | $21.63 |
| 6 Month: | $20.76 |
| 9 Month: | $20.28 |
| 12 Month: | $20.09 |
CHEESE
Cash cheese prices continued to tumble lower Friday with block prices falling 6 cents per pound, while barrel cheese prices tumbled 16.5 cents per pound during the morning trading session. This 16.5 cent per pound loss is the largest one-day loss of 2024 and indicates a 70 cent per pound pullback in barrel cheese prices in the last three weeks. Concern of further market pressure and current milk production levels has buyers unwilling to actively buy short- and long-term product with the potential that additional softness may continue to develop through the month of October. With the lower prices, overall trade volume has been very limited with only 4 loads of barrel cheese selling through the week. Traders may continue to focus on upcoming market needs, but prices are going to have to stabilize for a few days in a row before active trade will be reported on the exchange. Even though sharp price losses were seen on the cash exchange market Friday, cheese futures prices were posted more moderate market softness as traders have already factored a portion of the recent losses into the futures trade. Total cheese output (excluding cottage cheese) during August of 2024 was 1.20 billion pounds, This is 1.7% above August 2023 and 0.5% above July 2024. Italian type cheese production totaled 499 million pounds, 3.1% above August 2023 and 0.6% above July 2024. American type cheese production totaled 478 million pounds, 0.3% below August 2023 but 1.8% above July 2024.
BUTTER
Cash butter prices stabilized at the end of the week with prices moving fractionally higher and gaining 0.75 cent per pound. This moved butter prices to $2.6875 per pound. Friday was the most active day of trade on the exchange with 23 loads traded during the session. Weekly trade was considered active with a total of 59 loads of butter traded on the exchange at the generally lower price levels. Even though monthly production reports posted increased production from year ago levels, the focus on lower prices is helping to stimulate some active buying interest that is likely to continue over the near future. In the August Dairy Product production report released Friday afternoon. Butter production was reported at 159 million pounds. This is 14.5% above August 2023 but currently 3.0% below July 2024. The strong year over year production gains is expected to continue to limit long-term buyer interest in the cash and futures markets. Dry milk products (comparisons in percentage with August 2023), Nonfat dry milk, human -- 115 million pounds, up 2.2%. Skim milk powder -- 50.3 million pounds, down 29.4%. In whey products (comparisons in percentage with August 2023)
Dry whey, total -- 65.5 million pounds, down 21.6%. Lactose, human and animal -- 95.6 million pounds, up 3.5%. Whey protein concentrate, total -- 41.5 million pounds, up 1.7%. Ice cream production was reported at 69.3 million gallons for regular hard product. This is 5.9% above year ago levels, and lowfat ice cream production at 38.7million gallons, down 8.8% from last year.
OUTSIDE MARKETS SUMMARY
December corn closed down 3.50 cents per bushel at $4.2475, November soybeans closed down 8.25 cents at $10.3775 and December soybean meal closed down $2.00 per ton at $330.50. December Chicago wheat closed down 13.75 cents at $5.8975. December live cattle closed up $0.60 at $187.00. November crude oil is up .92 per barrel at $74.63. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 341.160 points at 42,352.75. NASDAQ is up 219.37 points at 18,137.85.
