Dairy prices tumble

Wednesday 16th March 2011

Dairy commodity prices tumbled at Fonterra's overnight online auction, with the globalDairyTrade trade weighted index falling 8.2%, and the average winning price down to US$4443 (NZ$6064) from US$4826 a fortnight ago.

The decline came amid a broad sharp fall in commodity futures, with the Reuters-Jeffries CRB index on course for its biggest daily slide in four months on fears Japan's nuclear crisis could turn into a larger catastrophe.

At the Fonterra auction, the trade weighted price for anhydrous milk fat fell 4.5% to US$6111, skim milk powder fell 4.6% to US$3816, and wholemilk powder dropped 11.4% to US$4105.

BNZ said the decline was broadly as expected, and prices were still up 17.5% for the year and likely to stay at favourable levels for some time.

NZPA

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