The U.S. cattle herd is still in a contraction phase. USDA released its Cattle Inventory report yesterday. The total inventory of all cattle and calves as of 1 January was 87.2 million head; that compares to 89.3 million head, or 98 percent, of the cattle inventory on 1 January 2022. That is the smallest U.S. cattle herd since 1951.
Yesterday’s report made a few revisions on prior reports dating back to July 2022. The most significant was the beef heifer replacements for 1 January 2023. Last year, beef replacement heifers were reported at 5.1637 million head, or 94 percent of the January 2022 total. In this year’s revision, that number dropped to 4.9296 million head, which puts replacement heifers in the beginning of 2023 at...
What You Need to Know Today: The hot, dry weather forecast continues to drive strength in grain futures with corn and soybeans hitting another day of strong gains. Monday’s Crop Progress and Conditions data were in line with market expectations and showed relatively few concerns for the...
Yesterday we wrote about the Q1 GDP numbers and the June employment reports in an article entitled Real GDP for Q1 Relying on AI Buildout, Held Back by Consumer Spending. That article mentioned that consumer spending had become a drag on GDP. Nonetheless, real GDP in Q1 was revised upward to 2...
Key Takeaways: The Middle East and North Africa's arid climate and limited water resources have created a structural dependence on imported wheat. Government wheat tenders in major importing countries serve as important benchmarks for global trade, providing insight into exporter competitivene...
