Bullish GDT in Dollars, Bearish in Euro’s

The past two trading days have felt like a boat without a rudder—drifting. Butter, however, is quietly rowing upstream, especially in H2, where prices are inching up. Nearby prices aren't backing down either. Cheese? Still stuck in the mud. Powder? Let's just say the bears have more to work with. And the big question hanging over Tuesday? How would GDT respond to recent market tensions? Well, that depends on your favorite pair of glasses. Bulls found plenty of headlines to support their narrative. Bears—us included, according to some of our cheerfully skeptical partners—can still build a decent case for the downside.

Let’s talk numbers. GDT rose 1.6%, a bit better than expected. AMF jumped 2.1%, butter added 1.5%, WMP gained 2.8%, and mozzarella shot up 5.4%. SMP was the outlier, down 2.3%, while cheddar slipped 1.8%—no surprises there. So, no collapse in global demand despite political noise and rate jitters. Buyers remain active and are locking in volume at levels not far off previous events.

But back in Europe, it's harder to find a silver lining. Take AMF: last event it printed €6,190, now it's down to €6,011. That 2.1% USD gain? Turns into a nearly 3% decline in euros. Same story with butter. Solarec dropped slightly from €7,300 to €7,260. Irish butter moved up modestly, though pricing remains fuzzy. GDT skipped publishing Kerry’s number, but our partners came back with a range between €7,070 and €7,180. NZ butter, meanwhile, dropped like a stone—from over €7,000 to below €6,800.

Mozzarella’s 5.4% spike looks impressive—until you realize EU prices haven’t moved. GDT’s average came in at €4,185, essentially where we were two weeks ago. Great for headlines, not so great for your EU forward book.

As for SMP, Solarec dropped nearly 3.5% from €2,470 to just under €2,380. Arla was more stable, down only €25. But look at NZ prices, and focus at C2: low heat prices fell €250/mt, medium heat dropped €100. Not exactly bullish ammo.

So how do we read the GDT? It’s a global tender, sure. But anyone expecting a bullish lift for EU prices is likely to be disappointed. For most of our partners—focused on EU trade or exports out of Europe—this GDT result is more bearish than bullish. Bonus trivia: all USD/EUR prices are based on a 1.137 exchange rate. Spot FX at the time of writing? 1.128. If you needed a reminder of how currency swings yank on EU margins, there you have it.

---

Liquids: Stable, With a Side of Shrug

The EU liquid market stayed impressively flat. Traders report low offers, low bids, and even less urgency. Trades ranged from €8,250 FCA to €8,500 DAP for cream—same highs and lows as last week. UK cream is still trailing the continent, and raw milk and SMC are abundant, which frankly isn’t a shock this time of year.

---

Butter: Quietly Building Strength

Butter continues to look the most bullish, even if most of that energy is hiding in the futures. H2 traded up to €7,300, with contango re-emerging against Q2. Nearby may creep up slightly, but with stable cream prices and sufficient supply, don’t expect fireworks. We wonder how tomorrow's quotations will impact the activity on futures. NL and German quotations are expected to land between € 7200 and € 7250 while the French might surprise us with a € 500,- drop or a € 250 hike. Here's how the bids and offers are shaping up:

• NL/DE/BE April–May: Bids €7,200, offers €7,300
• NL/DE/BE Q3: Bids €7,250, offers €7,375
• Irish May–June: Bids €7,075, offers €7,150 FCA
• Irish Q3: Bids €7,125, offers €7,300

---

Cheese: Stuck in Neutral

Cheese feels sluggish. Demand is there, but only just. Mozzarella around €4,150 still finds buyers, Gouda at €4,300 too. Sellers are predictably €100 above that. Not much movement, just a steady tug-of-war. Cheddar’s the weak spot—UK supply is weighing on Irish, and that’s rippling into Eastern Europe. Will prices drop further? Maybe not. The floor feels pretty solid for now.

---

Powders: Bearish, But Too Bored to Sell

The powder market has all the hallmarks of a bear trend, minus one thing: sellers. Prices are drifting lower, but no one’s hammering the bid. GDT did nothing to help sentiment. Production is expected to rise while demand... isn’t. But again, with no big stocks to offload and no one desperate to move product, this market is bleeding slowly—not crashing. As long as warehouses stay tidy, don’t expect drama.

We continue to see wide spreads:

• SMP sellers: €2,350–€2,400
• Buyers: €50–€100 lower

---

Conclusion

So where does that leave us? In a market where headline optimism is often lost in translation—especially once FX does its thing. Butter may be warming up, but powders are still stuck in the freezer. Cheese doesn’t want to move, and the liquid market feels like it hit the snooze button. This market isn’t bullish. It’s not even convincingly bearish. It’s just... hesitant. And hesitant markets? Those are the ones that move when nobody’s watching. Stay sharp.