Cattle Commentary 8/29

Peter McGinnGeneral Commentary

Feeder cattle contracts across the board took a hit today as the November contract opened at 184.375 but settled over $2 lower at 182.90. The volume for today’s trade was substantially higher than Friday’s. From what I’ve been hearing as far as the cash trade goes this week, it remains unclear but leaning towards a lower week as cash has been starting to slip lower the past few sessions. All of these factors plus the price of corn futures right now are putting pressure in the Feeders market.

Dec live cattle settled unchanged on the day with a really small trading range to start the week. There has been more talk of market ready supplies starting to tighten as feedlots are current on marketings. Choice beef cutout values fell 78 cents Friday to $262.76, down $1.52 for the week and live steers averaged $144.54 through Friday last week, this was down $2.34 from the previous week. The USDA slaughter numbers from Friday came in at 123,000 head and 56,000 for Saturday. With those two days, that brought the total of the week to 678,000 head, up from 661,000 the previous week and 653,000 from a year ago.