Dairy Markets were muted Friday awaiting the USDA cold storage report and following a general market trend lower. With DOW Jones trading over 500 points lower at one point and Corn sliding to $6.50/bushel.
CME spot trade saw Blocks dive 7 cents lower to $1.88/lb with Barrels down 2 ¾ cents to $1.54/lb. Butter however gained 5 cents to $2.43/lb with Grade A Non Fat Dry milk unchanged at $1.21 ½ and Dry whey inched up a quarter of a cent to $0.46 1/2/lb.
Class IV milk was mixed with nearby unchanged with February at $18.86, March at $18.80 and April down 3 to $18.97/cwt.
Class III milk was slightly lower with February down 3 to $17.86, March down 4 to $17.72, and April down 14 to $17.60/cwt.
The January cold storage report had Cheese inventories at 1.44 billion pounds at the end of January, a decline of 4.1 million lbs from the prior month in a time frame that we generally add inventory of almost 13.9 million on average. Butter however rose to 263 million lbs in cold storage, an increase of 46.4 million lbs versus December, just slightly more than the 5 year average gain of 45.2 million in that time frame.
