Grain and Soybean futures extended the previous session’s gains Tuesday with Corn futures closing mostly 2¢ to 6¢ higher and Soybean futures closing 5¢ to 7¢ higher.
Stronger Grain futures continued to cap Cattle futures.
Feeder Cattle futures closed an average of 40¢ lower, except for 22¢ higher in spot Mar.
Live Cattle futures closed an average of 39¢ lower.
Negotiated cash fed cattle trade ranged from inactive on very demand to a standstill through Tuesday afternoon with too few transactions to trend, according to the Agricultural Marketing Service.
Live prices last week were at $138/cwt. in the Southern Plains and Nebraska and at $140 in the western Corn Belt. Dressed prices were at $221 in Nebraska at $222 and in the western Corn Belt.
Choice Boxed beef cutout value was $1.47 higher Tuesday afternoon at $259.97/cwt. Select was 61¢ lower at $251.89.
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Major U.S. financial indices rebounded Tuesday, helped along by bank stocks with rising interest rates.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 254 points higher. The S&P 500 closed 50 points higher. The NASDAQ was up 270 points.
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Although short-run fed cattle supplies are less than a year ago, Matthew Diersen, risk and business management specialist at South Dakota State University says packer forward contracting of cattle is also less.
“Seasonally, this is the time of year when packers tend to try to have a larger share of cattle forward contracted for delivery. As a result, April through June tends to have larger shares contracted than other months,” Deirsen says, in the latest issue of In the Cattle Markets. “As of March 14, 2022, feedlots had contracted 235,000 cattle for delivery in April and 139,000 head for June. A year ago at this time of year, there had been 271,000 head contracted for April and 170,000 for June. Thus, the contracting pace is running behind last year’s levels. In other words, packers do not have as many cattle lined up even though short-run supplies of cattle on feed are similar to a year ago.”