Negotiated cash fed cattle trade and demand was light to moderate in Nebraska and the Western Corn belt through Wednesday afternoon. Live trade on Nebraska was mostly steady with the previous day at $126/cwt. Dressed trade there sold steady with the previous week at $200. Dressed trade in the western Corn Belt was also steady with the previous week at $200.
Elsewhere, trade and demand were light with a few live purchases at $126, steady with the previous day.
Wholesale beef values basically traded sideways. Choice boxed beef cutout value was 37¢ higher Wednesday afternoon at $210.06. Select was 5¢ lower at $204.32.
Cattle futures turned lower with some technical selling and position squaring. Perhaps some pressure came from worries about big numbers in the Cattle report released yesterday, which ultimately ended up in line with expectations (see below).
Feeder Cattle futures closed an average of $1.72 lower ($1.40 to $2.12 lower in spot Mar).
Live Cattle futures closed an average of 94¢ lower (57¢ to $1.25 lower).
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On Wall Street Wednesday, major U.S. financial indices closed higher, recovering a small portion of the previous day’s selloff.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 72 points higher. The S&P 500 closed 1 point higher. The NASDAQ closed 9 points higher.
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The nation’s beef cowherd continued to expand last year at a slowing rate, according to the Cattle report released by USDA yesterday.
There were 31.72 million beef cows to start this year. That’s 509,800 head more (+1.63%) than Jan. 1 of 2017.
Of the eight states with 1 million or more beef cows, South Dakota producers added the most cows (+137,000 head), followed by Texas (+125,000) and Missouri (+111,000).
Of the states with more than 1 million beef cows, producers in only two them started the year with fewer cows: Kansas (-63,000) and Nebraska (-10,000).
There were 6.13 million beef replacement heifers, which was 3.72% less than at the beginning of last year.
The total inventory of all cows and calves Jan. 1 was 93.70 million head, which was 0.74% more than the previous year.