Cattle futures melted down Friday on President Trump’s widely reported and vague comments that the White House plans to lower beef prices. Algorithmic trading likely drove the selloff deeper and faster than would have otherwise been the case. Fundamentally speaking and guided by history, government intervention in cattle and beef markets has never been favorable to producers.
Live Cattle futures were an average of $6.50 lower. Feeder Cattle futures were an average of $9.08 lower — limit down in all but the front contract.
Week to week on Friday, Live Cattle futures closed an average $2.59 lower, except for $1.78 higher in spot Oct. Feeder Cattle futures closed an average of $1.86 lower, from 80¢ lower in the back contract to $4.20 lower toward the front.
Negotiated cash fed cattle trade was active on good demand in all major cattle feeding regions through Friday afternoon, according to the Agricultural Marketing Service.
FOB live prices were mainly $240/cwt. in all regions, which was $5 higher in Kansas, $5-$6 higher in Nebraska, $5 higher in the western Corn Belt, and compared to two weeks earlier, $7 higher in the Texas Panhandle.
Dressed delivered prices were $10 higher in Nebraska at $372 and $10-$10.50 higher in the western Corn Belt at $372-$372.50.
Choice boxed beef cutout value was 66¢ higher Friday afternoon at $366.77/cwt. Select was $1.34 higher at $350.27.
Technical support continued to underpin Grain and Soybean futures Friday.
Corn futures closed fractionally higher to 1¢ higher. KC HRW Wheat closed 1¢ to 2¢ higher through Mar ’27 and then fractionally higher. Soybean futures closed mostly 6¢ to 8¢ higher.
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Major U.S. financial indices closed higher Friday, helped along by easing trade tensions between the U.S. and China, at least for the day.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 238 points higher. The S&P 500 closed 34 points higher. The NASDAQ was up 117 points.
West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil futures (CME) closed 8¢ to 39¢ higher through the front six contracts.
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Closure of the federal government, except for what are deemed essential services, is soon to enter the fourth week. Although USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service continues to provide many daily reports utilized by cattle producers, much other pertinent information remains unavailable. For instance, the October World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates have already fallen victim. The monthly Cattle on Feed report was supposed to be published next Friday.
“Market data and information are critical to modern agricultural industry functions – you can’t manage (or assess) what you don’t measure,” says Glynn Tonsor, agricultural economist at Kansas State University, in the most recent issue of In the Cattle Markets.
“Most livestock producers are what economists would describe as price takers,” Tonsor explains. “The available set of market data and information for livestock sellers has long been justification for public investment in collection and reporting efforts by USDA (and other governmental agencies). Over the past couple decades this evolution has included implementation of LMR (livestock mandatory reporting) extending the breadth, depth, and precision of market information in meat and livestock markets.”
At the same time, Tonsor notes ongoing discussions about the value of public data, its cost and net return. He mentions one of the few efforts made to determine those answers relative to USDA data. It was a project conducted by the Council on Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics. Jayson Lusk, agricultural economist, led the project. He is now vice president and dean of agricultural programs at Oklahoma State University. From Farm Income to Food Consumption: Valuing USDA Data Productsreports the findings.
“One of the earliest and most robust findings from the field of experimental economics is that public knowledge of prices is a key factor driving whether a market attains competitive equilibrium (Davis and Holt, 1993),” according to the report. “Market participants often see public sources of data as more objective and credible than private data. Added credibility gives market participants confidence in using public data as the basis of trade (for example, as the base in a formula contract) or forecasting, without fear of that the data has been manipulated by the provider.”
Of course, that’s a mere sliver of the research analyzed in the report.
“For decades U.S. agriculture has been the envy of the world regarding available volume and quality of market information,” Tonsor says. “While I would say that broadly still applies, it is very easy to take that for granted.”