Market News

Milk futures lower, cash dairy trade mixed

Milk futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange pulled back at midweek as cash cheese turned lower and grains were higher.

September Class III milk unchanged at $16.60. October down seven cents at $17.35. November 17 cents lower at $16.98. December down 11 cents at $17.19. January through March contracts three to nine cents lower.

Dry whey up $0.0150 at $0.5650.

Blocks down $0.0250 at $1.7250. Two sales were made at $1.7150 and $1.7250.

Barrels down $0.02 at $1.58. Four sales were made from $1.5650 to $1.59.

Butter down $0.0275 at $1.7225. Two trades were made at $1.72 and $1.7225.

Nonfat dry milk up $0.01 at $1.36. One trade was made at that price.

The USDA says total natural cheese and other cheese categories continued to set new records this past month.

Cheese stocks during August set another record at more than 1.4 billion pounds, down one percent on the month but up four percent on the year. Other types of cheese also set a stocks record with a majority of inventories housed in the East North Central region which includes Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin.

Butter inventories were down seven percent from the previous month and one percent from last year at more than 396 million pounds.

For October, the USDA has set the base Class I milk price at $17.08 per hundredweight, up $0.49 from September, with the base Class I skim price at $10.66, up $0.20.