At the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Class III milk futures closed mostly lower Monday, pressured by a mostly inactive cash session. Over the weekend, the Trump administration announced another 10% tariff on another 200 billion of imported Chinese goods. That adds to the 50 billion that are already being tariffs and deepens concerns over trade negotiations going forward. That together with a soft product trade lead to softer Class III markets are the average from now through the end of the year drop 7 cents to finish at $16.13. September milk closed up a penny at $16.12. October down 15 cents at $16.11. November down six cents at $16.25. December down eight cents at $16.04. January through next August contracts closed four cents lower to a penny higher. The 2019 calendar average dropped another penny to $16.10. Class IV market saw support from the higher butter trade that led the average from now through the end of the year four cents higher to $14.98.
It was a quiet day in the CME spot trade where collectively only six loads moved between seller and buyer across all five products combined. Butter was half of that volume rising 2 and a half cents to finish at $2.26. Grade A nonfat accounted for two loads, dropping a half a cent and finishing at 87 cents. Barrels claimed the final load, it finished unchanged at $1.42 while blocks were also unchanged at $1.60 and a half. Although they did not trade. That was true also of whey, it remained unchanged as well and finishes at 52 and a quarter.
