The largest fall for the product indexes was butter, down 11.1% to US$2850/t. Whole milk powder (WMP), New Zealand’s key commodity, dropped 4.6% to US$2694/t still well above its calendar-year low in August of US$1590/t and skimmed milk powder (SMP) dropped 4.5% to US$2178/t.
Cheddar fell 2.2% to US$3163/t, lactose was down 3.8% to US$507/t while anhydrous milkfat was up 2.4% to US$3856/t, butter milk powder was up 3.2% to US$2064/t and rennet casein was up 2.1% to US$6178/t.
The number of participating bidders in the October 20 event was 163, down on the 180 from the previous auction. The number of winning bidders however had risen to 127 from 119 at the previous auction.
Quantity of product sold at the auction had slipped back to 34,519t from 35,243t sold at the previous auction.
The AgriHQ 2015-16 Farmgate Milk Price has decreased 13c to $5.26/kg milksolids (MS) due to the easing on GDT combined with an easing on the NZX Dairy Futures market.
AgriHQ said the NZX Dairy Derivatives market still shows dairy commodity prices trending up in the coming months but the rate of growth has slowed. A fortnight ago WMP was expected to reach US$3000/t by the end of 2015 but this price is now not expected to be achieved until May 2016.
“While the market had generally eased, the results of the latest GDT auction still came as a surprise. The NZX Dairy Derivatives market had predicted both WMP and SMP prices would lift again at the October 20 GDT event,” AgriHQ dairy analyst Susan Kilsby said.
Fonterra’s milk intakes for September were 9% below year-ago levels. “The news of the sharp fall in milk supply should have supported a lift in GDT prices, however that was not the case,” Kilsby added.
