August Cattle/ Cattle on Feed Estimates

Peter McGinnGeneral Commentary

August cattle traded another 1.05 lower today after trading about .50 lower yesterday and closing near its lows. I have been hearing some cash trades in Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma had an average price traded at 138.09 which is roughly 1.50 down from the previous week of the same region. Following the trend, Boxed Beef prices have traded lower as well falling .99. In the time period that there is usually a rally for the cattle market it has been anything but, the August contract has had a high of 137.85 in May and has only retested that high twice in early June before falling back off again. With the weakness in the outside markets, I believe that will trigger the selling from traders amid lack of consumer demand and uncertainty in the overall economy. One other thing I have been hearing from some producers is that overall production will begin to slow for the 3rd and 4th quarters, which may give support to this market but in the long term I think beef prices will continue to slide. From a technical analysis on the market, all of my indicators have turned negative and continue to trend lower. The Slow Stochastic has turned negative and the market has traded below major moving averages which is triggering even more selling.

Tomorrow is the CoF report and estimates are showing; the On Feed estimate to be 101.5 with a range of 101-101.9, Placed estimated at 99.8 with a range of 101.6, and Marketings estimated at 103 with a range of 102.4-104.1.