Update

Last week was a short week with the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, Happy New Year and I apologize for the lack of report and pricing. Even with the lack of the report there has been plenty of action and the lead up to the season has seen a flurry of business.

Cashews

The upward price continues to climb and we believe it will do so till January. Demand is very high and it’s looking like a bumper season in terms of demand. India and Vietnam besides for all the bad decisions they have made over the course of this year know that this is the time to strike and are taking advantage of this demand by asking high prices and getting it. We don’t see much changing and with the return of heavy buying from China price could stay but most likely to continue to rise. It’s not going down, even Jan forward contract are high but will that hold remains to be seen. LP is a freak of nature, price is still very yet demand hasn’t abated.  

Almonds

It’s been a mess of indecision, first growers offered then they pulled of the market and made us wait, made me feel like being at a high school prom all over again. Well it seems the wait may finally be over and now that they have finished the crop and know the numbers (which looks to be more at the 1,75BL number) they will reopen the books next week and we should be business as usual. Offers we are seeing right now are from traders that booked heavily last crop or sprang into action in the short window of offers and are riding the wave and making good money, in this case the risk was worth the reward. Next week will give us clarity and we should be able to offer out forward booking. Saying that don’t expect any huge price change, the drought continues to be a huge issue and very worrying.

Pistachios

Crop news isn’t great isn’t terrible, it’s been a decent crop with some amount of blanks, we know as well that there has been a very low carry over from last year’s crop. We have been pushed of week after week but we are told that next week finally pricing will be offered. Saying that one large grower did dip his toe into the water and offered out for one day at decent pricing then closed shop the day after. We feel that they are going to want to go out where last year’s crop left off and we thing think its going to fly as the market has been robust at the $5.20 - $5.40 level, saying that and we should see some decent pricing very soon and have proper knowledge.

Pecans

New crop is irrelevant as its going to miss the season and the growers know this but they also know that we know it’s been an excellent crop year. So current spot pricing is high and they are holding firm because they want to protect old crop pricing before announcing new crop price. The also want to keep the price high using a futile attempt that all other nuts has gone up in pricing why can’t Pecans be like Almonds (because all nuts are not created equal) , it’s not going to happen. For now we advise to buy what is needed spot and cover needs. (same thing we have said last three months)

Walnuts

Another good crop but as per last report very little offers due the pipeline, since there is virtually no old crop on the market the growers have to get export crop out before they can service domestic properly but we hope we are going to see a nice price reduction.