{"id":221282,"date":"2026-01-07T10:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T10:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/221282\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T10:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T10:55:08","slug":"dairy-prices-start-2026-with-6-3-rally-at-gdt-auction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/221282\/","title":{"rendered":"Dairy prices start 2026 with 6.3% rally at GDT auction"},"content":{"rendered":"Likewise SMP, which had also been under pressure over the second half of last year, jumped by 5.4% to US$2564\/tonne.<\/p>\n
While price increases had been anticipated following signals from the GDT \u201cpulse\u201d auction \u2013 held between the main twice-monthly auctions \u2013 and from the derivatives market, the magnitude of the move \u201cmaterially exceeded expectations\u201d, Alvarado said in a report.<\/p>\n
Total volumes offered declined from the previous event, consistent with New Zealand milk production moving past the sesonal peak.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe combination of lower available supply and a broad improvement in regional participation pushed prices higher across all commodities offered,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Buying activity increased across most regions, with only North Asia and North America reducing their share compared with the last auction in December.<\/p>\n
North Asia remained the dominant buyer overall, accounting for 44% of total volumes sold, down from 58% at the prior event.<\/p>\n
The most notable shift came from the Middle East, where buying share nearly doubled from 11% to 21%, Alvarado said.<\/p>\n
This region emerged as the second-largest buyer of WMP and was a key contributor to the 7.2% lift in the WMP price index.<\/p>\n
She said the auction reinforced the sensitivity of prices to shifts in regional demand when platform volumes tighten.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile hand-to-mouth buying behaviour remains evident, the strength and breadth of this event highlight that latent demand can re-emerge quickly when availability declines, amplifying price responses across the GDT complex,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Alvarado told the Herald it was too early to tell if the market had turned.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019ll have to wait for next event to see how that one goes, but it is good to see that there is definitely demand there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do need to take into account that there was less volume offered in this event, and there will be less as well in the next one as we start to head down in the lower side of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo even if we don\u2019t see them going up much again, I would expect to at least see prices to flatten and not keep dropping as sharply as they were doing before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Milk production in New Zealand, and nearly all the main dairy producing countries, has been very strong.<\/p>\n
Alvarado expected domestic production to remain high going into the tail end of the season even for those regions that have not had the best weather.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a lot of supplement being used because margins are still good and costs are still being kept at bay,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Fonterra last month cut its forecast range for 2025\/26 to a midpoint of $9 per kg of milk solids from $9.50\/kg, reflecting the impact that strong production was having on prices.<\/p>\n
Jamie Gray is an Auckland-based journalist, covering the financial markets, the primary sector and energy. He joined the Herald in 2011.<\/p>\n
Listen and subscribe to the\u00a0Today in Business<\/a>\u00a0podcast \u2013 the top headlines from the\u00a0NZ Herald\u00a0business team summarised and delivered by an artificial intelligence (AI) voice as an easily digestible recap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Likewise SMP, which had also been under pressure over the second half of last year, jumped by 5.4%…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2246,58254,1975,1978,18510,138,5098,7224,3806,71,3014,53493,1437,108,10110,60388,111,139,69,12937,16237,4497,18835,1961,584,41656,102,379],"class_list":["post-221282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-2246","tag-58254","tag-at","tag-auction","tag-buoyed","tag-business","tag-buying","tag-dairy","tag-east","tag-from","tag-gain","tag-gdt","tag-global","tag-kicked","tag-middle","tag-mornings","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-prices","tag-rally","tag-start","tag-strong","tag-this","tag-trade","tag-unexpectedly","tag-with","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}