Market News

Milk futures, cash dairy lower

Milk futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange started the week lower anticipating bearish USDA reports and seeing little cash activity Monday.

January Class III milk unchanged at $16.16.  February down 50 cents at $15.96.  March 50 cents lower at $17.04.  April down 23 cents at $17.31.  May through July contracts seven to 15 cents lower.

Dry whey unchanged at $0.54. 

Blocks unchanged at $1.61. 

Barrels unchanged at $1.3925.  Two sales were made at $1.39 and $1.3925.

Butter down $0.0425 at $1.36.  Four sales were made ranging from $1.36 to $1.4075. 

Nonfat dry milk down $0.01 at $1.1625. 

The USDA says dairy stocks continue to build with cheese in cold storage hitting record large levels.

Cheese stocks during December totaled nearly 1.4 billion pounds, up four percent from November and six percent on the year.

Butter inventories were up nine percent from the previous month and up 44 percent higher than last year at nearly 274 million pounds.