There wasn’t much country trade to speak of, and there were only 897 head offered in the weekly Fed Cattle Exchange auction, with no sales.
However, slaughter steers sold mostly $1-$2 higher at Sioux Falls in South Dakota. Slaughter heifers sold mostly $2 higher.
So, that and other factors including chatter about tighter front end supplies suggest odds continue to favor higher cash fed cattle prices this week.
Cattle futures received support early with follow-through buying from the previous day’s rally. Although that support faded, futures were confined to a narrow trading range and managed a mixed close.
Live Cattle futures closed narrowly mixed (after 60¢ and 45¢ lower in the front two contracts, mainly 2¢ to 27¢ higher).
After 27¢ lower and 5¢ higher in the front two contracts, Feeder Cattle futures closed an average of 57¢ higher.
Choice boxed beef cutout value was 8¢ higher Wednesday afternoon at $200.21/cwt. Select was 30¢ lower at $192.39.
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Major U.S. financial indices closed sharply lower on Wednesday, pressured by weaker quarterly earnings reports, including Boeing.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 112 points lower. The S&P 500 closed 11 points lower. The NASDAQ closed 34 points lower.
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“Even though the head (fed cattle) marketed has not been a surprise, its role in the market has been key to fed cattle prices, which recently have been more than $10/cwt. above a year ago,” say analysts with the Livestock Marketing Information Center, in the latest Livestock Monitor. “A critical result of the marketing pace has been year-on-year declines in slaughter steer and heifer dressed weights. To a large extent, the market environment since late 2016 has pulled animals through the feeding stage of the production system, and that has driven weights below a year ago. For the last five weeks of data (through the week ending October 7) steer carcass weights were essentially flat and did not increase seasonally.”
Those analysts point out weight declines early this year were driven by market incentive, not severe winter weather.
“The bottom line is, at this time, a backlog of market ready cattle is not apparent,” say LMIC analysts.