As of today, week to date cattle slaughter is 99.7 percent of the same period last week. Last Thursday, we speculated that last week’s slaughter “could creep up on 670,000 head” – it was 668,000, making it the second highest week of the year.
Between now and Christmas, packing plants run at as high a capacity as they can to fulfill holiday demand. With some of the front-end cattle supplies at feed yards having been worked through, the combined effect would be some bullish cattle prices. Today’s negotiated trade for steers and heifers was $130/cwt. That is providing support to futures, although there was some correction today from yesterday’s highs. Another commodity bouncing back with holi...
What You Need to Know Today: There has already been a strong run of flash soybean sales announcements in recent weeks, but more than 1.4 MMT reported this morning is an exceptionally large single-day total with major implications for the market. If the sales to China and unknown destinations w...
On Friday, at 6:57 AM, President Donald Trump announced, via a social media post, a 90-day window during which up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef could be imported outside of tariff-rate quotas—a move aimed at bringing down costs for American consumers. This is the secon...
