Dairy Markets Weekly Review

(December 14, 2007) The cheese price roller coaster headed down again. The block price lost 4 cents on Monday December 10, 12 1/4 cents on Tuesday, and closed Friday at $1.93 per pound, down 26 1/4-cents on the week but still 61 cents above a year ago. Barrel closed at $1.9975, down 16 1/4-cents on the week but 70 3/4-cents above a year ago. Fifteen cars of block traded hands on the week and four of barrel. The NASS U.S. average block price hit $2.1297, up 2.9 cents. Barrel averaged $2.0777, up 3.9 cents.

The CME's Daily Dairy Report (DDR) called it a "cat-and-mouse" game because no one wanted to get caught with too much cheese in inventory at $2.00 and up, so marketers operated hand-to-mouth, thus preventing a stock build-up but that extended the buying season until end-of-year purchases were completed. The DDR also warned that more milk will head to manufacturing as schools break.

Butter closed Friday at $1.3350, up a half-cent on the week and 8 cents above a year ago. Sixteen cars were sold. NASS butter averaged $1.3134, down 0.4 cent. NASS nonfat dry milk averaged $1.8397, down 1.3 cents, and dry whey averaged 45.52 cents, up 0.3 cent.