Market News

Cattle trade at lower prices

USDA Mandatory reported cattle trading was moderate in Kansas and light in the Texas Panhandle on Thursday on light to moderate demand. Compared to last week, live cattle traded $3.00 lower at 133.00. Trade and demand was light to moderate in Nebraska and Iowa. In Nebraska live sales in the central part of the state traded at 132.000, with dressed sales $4.00 lower than last week at 206.00. Cattle in Iowa trended $1.00 t0 2.00 lower at 130.00, with dressed sales down $4.00 at 206.00. The estimated sales volume was 45,000 head.

Boxed beef cutout values were lower on choice and higher on select on light to moderate demand and offerings. Choice beef 217.02 down 1.17, select 214.27 up .65.

USDA estimated the Thursday cattle slaughter at 108,000 head, 3,000 more than last week, but 1,000 less than last year.

Live cattle contracts settle 155 to 235 points lower on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Futures cut early losses nearly in half but remained under significant pressure as traders concentrated on weakening fundamentals and lower cash cattle prices.

Feeder cattle finished 97 to 185 points in the red under moderate to strong pressure. Aggressive losses which pushed the live contracts to limit losses early in the session, appeared to test limit losses in the feeder cattle market also. The inability to draw additional seller activity into the market brought futures back to a more moderate range.

Feeder cattle receipts at the Huss Platte Valley Auction in Nebraska totaled 3870 head on Wednesday. Compared to two weeks ago, steers under 800 pounds sold steady, over 8.00 were mostly $2.00 to 5.00 lower, heifers were mostly steady. Demand was good for replacement heifers and moderate to good on all other classes of cattle. Feeder steers medium and large 1 averaging 721 pounds brought 163.87 per hundredweight. 715 pound heifers traded at 147.75.

Lean hogs settled 15 to 110 points higher. Moderate to strong short covering helped regain the losses which developed Wednesday, and created additional support through the end of the trading session most of the traders attention was placed on the pressure in the cattle trade and outside markets, which allowed for buyers to easily step back into the hog complex, creating more stability.

Barrows and gilts in the Iowa/Minnesota direct trade closed .56 higher at 63.64 weighted average on a carcass basis, the West was up .62 at 63.50, and nationally the market was .58 higher at 62.90. Missouri direct base carcass meat price was steady from 51.00 to 57.00. Midwest hogs on a live basis were steady from 37.00 to 48.00.

The pork carcass cutout value was down 1.53 at 75.52 FOB plant.

For the week ending Feb. 6, Iowa barrows and gilts averaged 283.5 pounds, .6 pounds lighter than the prior week and 2.1 pounds smaller than 2015.

This week’s hog slaughter total is expected to come in between 2.24 and 2.25 million head. Weekly kill totals should start running below the 2.20 million mark by early March.

The hog kill Thursday was estimated at 435,000 head, 34,000 more than last week and 1,000 greater than last year.

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