The cattle market had continued selling today after the Cattle on Feed report came out on Friday with a bearish tone. The numbers that came out Friday showed placed and on feed numbers slightly up from the expectations and the marketed cattle up 6% from last year. Futures had a stiff premium to the cash market which could bring long liquidation to the market for the coming trade sessions in my opinion. Another effect of the premium in the futures to cash is that cattle weights could begin to rise to help with expected lower production for the 1st quarter. USDA-reported live steers averaged $144.55 last week through Friday morning, up from the previous week’s $143.19 average and the second consecutive weekly increase. The USDA estimated cattle slaughter numbers came in at 125,000 head Friday and 33,000 head for Saturday. This brought the total for last week to 667,000 head which was unchanged from the previous week but up 643,000 from a year ago. Beef production was 548.9 million pounds, which was up about 3.1% from last year.
