Almond Market Update - May 13, 2020

The past few days were very exciting in the almond industry.  Both the April Position Report and the NASS Subjective Estimate were released Tuesday.

The subjective estimate for the 2020 crop exceeded expectations at 3.0 billion pounds.  As 2.96 billion pounds had already been mentioned weeks earlier, the market had somewhat already factored this in.

The April position report also confirms the crop receipts are finishing at 2.54 billion pounds, and demonstrated continued domestic demand.

Week 20 Update:

Bullish Trends:

1. April shipments remained strong at 181 million pounds, representing the fifth month in a row of record shipments.
2. Year-to-date shipments stand at 1.863 billion pounds (up +97 million lbs.), a +5.5% increase over last year at this time.  
3. Commitments are 65 million pounds, +15.1% ahead of last year.

Bearish Trends:

1. With a subjective estimate of 3.0 billion pounds, this represents a 17% increase over the previous crop year.  If a crop this large does materialize, it will be a difficult feat to move it.
2. There will be uncertainty in future demand as COVID-19 continues to impact many sectors of the business. 
3. With lockdowns still in place in April for many ports across the globe, it remains to be seen if the industry can catch up before new crop arrival, possibly causing an even larger carry-over than desired.