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Commodities: Stock traders, gas producers take toll on pizza brands last week

Food commodity prices last week dropped in trading, but increasing prices on all types of fuel, including natural gas more than made up for any potential gains their for pizza restaurateurs.

May 21, 2018 by S.A. Whitehead — Food Editor, Net World Media Group

Food commodity prices last week dropped in trading, but increasing prices on all types of fuel, including natural gas more than made up for any potential gains their for pizza restaurateurs. Traders didn't show much love for pizza brands last week either on the stock market, with all but one of the brands monitored by this site losing value over the week. 

Cheese
Cheese prices took a tumble last week, falling to their lowest level since early April to close Friday at $1.58, down 5 cents from the previous week's close. 

Wheat
Wheat prices also dropped last week. The USDA said that wheat sales were split, with 2.3 million bu old crop and 4.8 million bu new crop. That's in line with estimates, but short of the needed amounts.  

Kansas City U.S. No. 1 Hard Red Winter, ordinary protein rail bid was 2 cents lower, from $6.06-$6.21 per bushel.  Kansas City U.S. No. 2 Soft Red winter rail bid was not quoted.  

St. Louis truck U.S. No. 2 Soft Red Winter terminal bid was 9 cents lower, from $4.83-$5.04 per bushel.  Minneapolis and Duluth U.S. No. 1 Dark Northern Spring, 14.0 to 14.5 percent protein rail, was 4 1/4 to 19 1/4 cents lower, from $7.49 3/4-$7.64 3/4 per bushel.  

Portland U.S. Soft White wheat rail was steady to 9 1/2 cents lower, from $5.75-$5.90 1/2 per bushel.

Vehicle fuel

Natural gas
At the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex), the June 2018 contract price rose 8 cents, from $2.737/MMBtu on Wednesday, May 9 to $2.815/MMBtu the following Wednesday, May 16.

Net injections to working gas totaled 106 billion cubic feet (Bcf) for the week ending May 11. Working natural gas stocks are 1,538 Bcf, which is 35 percent lower than the year-ago level and 25 percent lower than the five-year (2013-17) average for this week.

The natural gas plant liquids composite price at Mont Belvieu, Texas, rose by 25 cents, averaging $8.24/MMBtu for the 7-day period ending May 16. The price of ethane fell by 3 percent, while the prices of natural gasoline, propane, butane, and isobutane rose by 1, 2, 4 and 18 percent, respectively.

According to Baker Hughes, for the seven days ending Tuesday, May 8, the natural gas rig count increased by three to 199. The number of oil-directed rigs rose by 10 to 844. The total rig count increased by 13, and it now stands at 1,045. 

Pizza company stocks
It was a loss week for all the brands monitored by this site on the markets last week, except for Papa Murphy's, which managed to gain 19 cents over the week on the NASDAQ, to close Friday at $5.69. 

The same good news bypassed Domino's, Pizza Hut parent, Yum Brands and much beleaguered Papa John's, which again dropped in price, this time $1.97 over the week to close Friday at $50.89. 

Finally, even "on-a-roll" Domino's got bumped down last week on the NYSE, where the brand lost $4.67 in value over the trading week to close Friday at $244.86.

Photo: iStock

About S.A. Whitehead

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Pizza Marketplace and QSRweb editor Shelly Whitehead is a former newspaper and TV reporter with an affinity for telling stories about the people and innovative thinking behind great brands.