Cattle futures, led by Feeder Cattle, closed mostly higher on Tuesday, although off of session highs. Apparently, they were so far oversold for so long that traders had little other choice.
Live Cattle futures closed fractionally mixed (5¢ lower to 32¢ higher).
Except for 17¢ higher in the back contract, Feeder Cattle futures closed an average of 86¢ higher.
Choice boxed beef cutout value was 17¢ lower Tuesday afternoon at $222.36/cwt. Select was $1.22 lower at $214.24.
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Major U.S. financial indices continued to rebound early in Tuesday’s session and then headed south in a hurry, led by tech stocks.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 344 points lower. The S&P 500 closed 45 points lower. The NASDAQ closed 211 points lower.
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“Red meat, especially beef, continues to move briskly through the marketing chain, but chicken has struggled in that regard,” say analysts with the Livestock Marketing Information Center (LMIC), citing last week’s monthly Cold Storage report from USDA.
Total pounds of beef in freezers Feb. 28 were 8% less than the previous month and 8% less than the previous year, according to the recent report. Frozen pork supplies were up 6% from the previous month and up 8% from last year. Total frozen poultry supplies were up 6% from the previous month and up 14% percent from a year ago.
“In January and February, according to the latest Livestock Slaughter report from USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, U.S. output of beef was up 5.2% year over year,” say LMIC analysts in the latest Livestock Monitor. “Beef production was the largest for those two months since 2008. January-February U.S. pork output this year increased 5.0% from a year ago and was record-large for that timeframe. Chicken output also was record-large for those two months and rose 3.4% year-over-year.”
LMIC analysts note that chicken in cold storage was more than 900 million lbs. for the first time in any month.