Although there were too few transactions to trend, a few cattle traded in Nebraska through Friday afternoon at $105/cwt. on a live basis, which was steady with the previous week.
Feeder Cattle futures continued to rally on Friday, also leading Live Cattle to another day of gains.
Live Cattle futures closed an average of $1.26 higher (90¢ to $1.72 higher).
Feeder Cattle futures closed an average of $2.01 higher ($1.37 to $2.32 higher).
Choice boxed beef cutout value was 25¢ lower Friday afternoon at $191.88/cwt. Select was 19¢ lower at $189.97.
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Major U.S. financial indices closed narrowly mixed on Friday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 13 points higher. The S&P 500 closed 3 points lower. The NASDAQ closed 37 points lower.
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“Several weeks ago there seemed to be a dichotomy between feeder cattle prices and finished cattle prices as feeder cattle prices remained relatively strong while finished cattle prices were taking a nose dive,” says Andrew P. Griffith, agricultural economist at the University of Tennessee, in his weekly market comments. “This dichotomy appears to have ceased as both Feeder Cattle and Live Cattle futures contracts have begun to move to the upside. A point that further points to the contrast between prices a few weeks ago is that the Live Cattle contracts have gained nearly as many dollars per hundredweight as the Feeder Cattle contracts. Another point of interest in the Feeder Cattle market is the narrow price spread among the eight actively traded contracts from September 2017 to August 2018. The eight contracts are all within a $5/cwt. price range, with the remaining 2017 contracts trading within a $1 range. Similarly, the 2018 contracts are all within $2 of each other. The information from the narrow spreads across months can be difficult to decipher. In the near term, it likely means traders are not sure how many cattle are still on pasture and that they may question some of the information reported earlier in the year.