December cattle, and the cattle market in general, looks to have put in a near term top in my opinion. The runup to 152 and attempt to retest the April high failed as now the market has had 3 consecutive lower sessions. Dec cattle had an $8 rally from the beginning of July to mid-August, so a 30% retracement would be right around the price level that it closed at today 149.100. The 149 level looks to be the first level of support going back to late July and early June where it had short consolidation periods.
Cash is starting to trend lower I’ve been hearing as the 5-area weighted average price as of Thursday afternoon was 144.49, which was down from 145.97 last week. Cash prices are a little mixed based on the region as prices in the Northern markets are lower but seem to be steady in the south.
Kansas had a discount to Nebraska of $5.61 last week but that has since narrowed to $3.65.
The USDA slaughter numbers that came out yesterday showed a 0.8% drop in slaughtered cattle compared to this week last year and a 2.3% drop in beef production compared to this week last year.