Cattle Current Daily—Feb. 4. 2025

Cattle Current Daily—Feb. 4. 2025

As logic suggested, Cattle futures lost ground Monday, between likely technical correction, the weekend announcement from APHIS that Mexican cattle imports to the U.S. will resume this week and tariffs levied on Canada, Mexico and China, though Mexican tariffs are now postponed for a month.

Live Cattle futures closed an average of $2.04 lower. Feeder Cattle futures closed an average of $4.84 lower.

Negotiated cash fed cattle trade was inactive on very light demand in all major cattle feeding regions through Monday afternoon, with too few transactions to trend, according to the Agricultural Marketing Service. 

Last week, FOB live prices were $6-$7 higher in the Southern Plains at $208/cwt. and steady to $2 lower in in the North at $210. Dressed delivered prices were steady to $2 higher at $330.

The weighted average five-area direct FOB live steer price was 38¢ higher at $209.57/cwt. The weighted average dressed delivered price was 45¢ lower at $329.07.

Choice boxed beef cutout value was $4.31 higher Monday afternoon at $331.99/cwt. Select was $2.77 higher at $319.84.

Grain and Soybean futures gained Monday when announcement came that new Mexican tariffs were postponed for a month and perhaps some betting on a deal getting done with China.

Corn futures closed 5¢ to 6¢ higher through Jly ‘26 and then mostly 2¢ to 3¢ higher.

Kansas City Wheat futures closed 5¢ to 6¢ higher.

Soybean futures closed 11¢ to 16¢ higher through Mar ‘26 and then 7¢ to 8¢ higher.

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Major U.S. financial indices closed lower as traders had a chance to react to the weekend’s tariff news.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 122 points lower. The S&P 500 closed 49 points lower. The NASDAQ was down 235 points.

West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil futures on the CME closed 7¢ to 63¢ higher through the front five contracts.

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Derrell Peel, Extension livestock marketing specialist at Oklahoma State University provides broader context to Friday’s Cattle inventory report, in bis weekly market comments.

For instance, the total cattle inventory of 86.7 million head Jan. 1 was down 0.6% year over year, which was 1.8% less than the recent cyclical low in 2014 and the least since 1951, according to Peel. He adds the inventory of cattle and calves has declined 8 million head (-8.5%) since the cyclical peak in 2019.

The beef cow herd Jan. 1 numbered 27.9 million head, which was 0.5% less year over year. That was 3.8% less than the previous low in 2014 and the fewest since 1961, according to Peel. He explains the beef cow herd is 3.8 million head fewer (-11.9%) since the recent peak in 2019.

Peel adds that the die is mostly cast for herd dynamics this year.

“The small inventory of beef heifers calving in 2025 (a part of the total beef replacement heifer inventory) suggests that little, if any, growth in the beef cow herd is likely. With bred heifers determined for the year, it will depend on cow culling,” Peel says. He explains, “The cow culling rate in 2024 dropped to 10.2% (from higher levels in 2021-2023), about equal to the previous twenty-year average.  Another year of sharp decrease in beef cow culling could lead to minimal herd growth but, lacking that, the cow herd could shrink a bit more this year.” 

Nationwide, calves and feeder cattle sold $3-$8/cwt. higher last week, with instances of $10-$15 higher, according to the Agricultural Marketing Service. There were 348,300 head reported at auction, direct and via video-internet, which was about 79,000 head more than the previous week and 3,000 head more than the same week last year.

2025-02-04T07:41:19-06:00

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