Cattle futures gained Thursday, recovering more of the early-week losses as traders positioned for the end of the week and quarter, and ahead of a long weekend.
Live Cattle closed an average of $1.49 higher.
Feeder Cattle futures closed an average of 89¢ higher, except for 30¢ lower in expiring Mar.
Negotiated cash fed cattle trade was moderate on moderate demand in the Texas Panhandle through Thursday afternoon, according to the Agricultural Marketing Service. FOB live prices were $2 lower at $186/cwt.
A day earlier FOB live prices were $3 lower in Kansas at $185.
Elsewhere, trade was slow on light demand with too few transactions to trend.
Last week, FOB live prices were $190 in Nebraska and $190-$191 in the western Corn Belt. Dressed delivered prices were $302.
Choice boxed beef cutout value was 22¢ lower Thursday afternoon at $308.36/cwt. Select was $2.74 higher at $301.17/cwt.
Net U.S. beef export sales of 12,700 metric tons (mt) for 2024 were 15% more than the previous week and 4% more than the prior four-week average, according to USDA’s weekly U.S. Export Sales report for the week ending Mar. 21. Increases were primarily for South Korea, Japan, China, Mexico and Taiwan.
Turning to row crops, Corn futures climbed higher, up mostly 10¢ to 15¢, fueled by USDA’s Prospective Plantings report (see below).
KC HRW Wheat futures closed mostly 4¢ to 5¢ higher.
Soybean futures closed mixed: 1¢ lower to 3¢ higher through Jan ’25 and then mostly 8¢ to 10¢ higher.
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Major U.S. financial indices closed little changed Thursday as investors wrapped up the trading week and quarter.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 47 points higher. The S&P 5 closed 5 points higher. The NASDAQ was down 20 points.
West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil futures (CME) closed $1.17 to $1.89 higher through the front six contracts.
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USDA’s Prospective Plantings report surprised some with estimated corn acres this year projected at 90 million acres, about 2 million acres less than expectations. That would be 4.6 million acres less than last year (-4.9%).
Corn stocks Mar. 1 were estimated to be 8.4 billion bu., which was 950.1 million bushels more than a year earlier (+12.9%), according to the latest Grain Stocks report. Of the total stocks, 5.1 billion bushels were stored on farms, up 24% from a year earlier. Projected off-farm stocks of 3.3 billion bushels were down 1% from a year ago.
Markets likely viewed the soybean outlook as neutral.
Soybean acres were projected at 86.5 million acres, which would be 2.9 million acres more than last year (+3.5%).
Soybean stocks were estimated at 1.8 billion bushels, up 158.4 million bushels (+9.4%) from a year earlier. Soybean stocks stored on farms were estimated at 933 million bushels, up 24% from a year ago. Off-farm stocks of 912 million bushels were 3% less than last March.
All wheat acres were projected at 47.5 million acres, which was 2.1 million acres less than last year (-4.2%) for comparable states. The projected 2024 winter wheat planted area of 34.1 million acres was 7% less than last year and 1% less than the previous estimate for comparable states.
Wheat stocks were estimated at 1.1 billion bushels, which was 146.2 million bushels more than a year earlier (+15.5%). On-farm stocks were estimated at 272 million bushels, up 20% from last March. Off-farm stocks of 816 million bushels were 14% more than a year ago.
All hay acres were projected to be 1.3 million acres less (-2.4%) than last year.