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22.12.2011 Almonds
Where most buyers still believe that prices will drop, shipping numbers and commitments are saying the opposite. Sales are still strong and keeps the almond industry, even in these difficult times, on schedule to market the 1.95 billion pounds. Strong demand still mainly comes from China and is expected to slow down due to Chinese New Year. This together with information about a good bloom may give some relief. Bad news about new crop (talks started already) will most probably cause increases. All in all we expect this market not to change too much and with almonds being the most attractive priced nuts we recommend to continue forward booking for this item.
22.12.2011 Brazilnuts
Although the 2011 crop was more or less sold out two months ago, demand has virtually come to a standstill and there is a clear indication that consumers do not accept these excessive price levels. Despite only a handful of containers being offered in recent weeks, prices have started to soften. This downward trend is needed as the new crop collection is beginning now and it is crucial that factories buy raw material at considerably lower prices. As always with raw material markets, once a price is set, it is very hard to reduce it later. In terms of predicting what will happen in the future we would like to think that the price of Brazilnuts could again have a 3 at the beginning – however we would like to make clear that despite the high prices this year we do not see any investment at all by the industry in Bolivia to increase the potential crop collection. Statistics show that we had production of kernels at about 20.000 mton for the last two years and we are afraid that there is not much potential for this to increase without new investment in collecting infrastructure. Weak demand is the only way to get prices down, which we hope will be the case over the next couple of months. Our recommendation is to wait for forward covering as there is a big potential for prices to fall.
22.12.2011 Cashews
The market for cashewnutkernels is quiet. Demand is slow. Sellers are offering but also not in a hurry. It looks like everybody first wants to wait till the holiday season is over before making decision for the forward positions. Supply side hopes that demand will pick up in January. Current stocks of raw nuts are limited and not much bought from East Africa yet. Increasing demand in January could cause slightly firmer prices as new crop from India/ Vietnam and West Africa will only be available from April onwards. Demand is strongly depending on consumer demand. As soon as buyers will know more about their sales figures and their stocks they will start looking at their forward positions. If demand around Christmas is strong carry over into 2012 will be limited and activity can be expected.
22.12.2011 Walnuts
The walnut market is still a difficult one to read. There are some strange things going on at the moment which makes it very difficult to give you a good recommendation. Where delays and consequently decreasing exports from the USA were expected to put prices under pressure the contrary happened as prices have increased further during the last weeks. Strong buying interest from other origins were expected to cause firmer prices, but we only see prices from Eastern Europe moving up, but India coming down. Buyers on the other hand are expecting prices to come down. We have our doubts based on the above, but we think it is advisable to cover at least a part of your needs. Coming 2 weeks could be a good period to try a bid as not a lot of activity is expected.