The Derivatives market has been less positive for milk powders. Whole milk powder (WMP) futures prices have come back further over the last couple of days. The January contract settled at US$2410/t on Wednesday and traded again at this price on Thursday. The February contract settled at US$2520/t on Wednesday and dropped further on Thursday, settling at US$2450/t. Prices for later dated contracts have also fallen. Prices for skim milk powder (SMP) have seen no movement. Bids for SMP yesterday were lower than the prices at which contracts settled for the day before. None of these bids were accepted.
However, there have been a number of block trades for whole milk powder – six in total over Wednesday and Thursday. Four of these were for 100 – 102t and two for 200t. Most of the trades were over US$2500/t. There was also one block trade for SMP for the April contract, with 100t trading at US$2230/t.
A total of 5 trades took place on Thursday but Wednesday had much higher activity, with 17 trades taking place. 1365t at a value of US$3.57m was traded on Wednesday.
Final settlement prices were reached for December contracts. The final settlement price for the Dec 2015 WMP Futures was US$2200/t, skim milk powder settled at US$1875/t, butter at US$2995/t and anhydrous milkfat at US$3552/t.
