Cattle futures closed mainly higher Tuesday amid choppy trade and following early pressure.
Feeder Cattle futures closed an average of 25¢ higher, except for unchanged and 5¢ lower in two away contracts.
Live Cattle futures closed an average of 75¢ higher, except for 37¢ lower in expiring Oct.
Negotiated cash fed cattle trade ranged from mostly inactive on light demand to a standstill in all major cattle feeding regions through Tuesday afternoon, with too few trades to trend, according to the Agricultural Marketing Service.
Last week, FOB live prices were $185/cwt. in the Southern Plains, $183-$186 in Nebraska and $183-$185 in the western Corn Belt. Dressed delivered prices were $290.
Choice boxed beef cutout value was $4.10 lower Tuesday afternoon at $305.18/cwt. Select was $1.39 lower at $279.50/cwt.
Corn futures closed mostly fractionally higher to 1¢ higher.
KC HRW Wheat closed mostly 12¢ to 15¢ lower.
Soybean futures closed mostly 1¢ to 4¢ higher.
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Major U.S. financial indices continued higher Tuesday as investors closed out the month.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 129 points higher. The S&P 500 closed 26 points higher. The NASDAQ was up 61 points.
West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil futures (CME) closed 79¢ to $1.29 lower through the front six contracts.
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The Rural Mainstreet Index (RMI) sank below growth neutral for the second consecutive month in October, according to the latest survey of bank CEOs in rural areas of a 10-state region dependent on agriculture and/or energy.
Specifically, the overall RMI declined 5.1 month to month to a reading of 44.4. The index ranges between 0 and 100, with a reading of 50.0 representing growth neutral.
“This is the weakest recorded reading for 2023 and points to weaker farm and non-farm economies,” explains Ernie Goss, Jack A. MacAllister Chair in Regional Economics at Creighton University’s Heider College of Business. “Despite this weakness, only 26.8% of banks reported tightening credit standards for farmers while 34.5% indicated that their bank had tightened credits standards for businesses in their area.”
The region’s farmland price index dropped 9.8 points to 55.6 in October. “Creighton’s survey continues to point to solid, but slowing, growth in farmland prices as farm commodity prices weaken,” Goss says.
According to bankers, these are the greatest challenge to farm and ranch profitability over the next 12 months, in approximate numbers:
*44.4% named low or falling crop prices.
*22.2% identified rising or high interest rates.
*14.8% pointed to rising or high farm input costs.
*7.4% said it was trade barriers and trade restrictions.
“Regarding the top farm challenge for the next 12 months, it is really the combination of higher interest rates, lower crop prices, high input costs and trade barriers. It would seem that the perfect storm is beginning to fester up,” says Jeff Bonnett, president of Havana National Bank in Havana, Ill.