Cattle futures spent most of Monday trading red, but futures ended off their lows and settled down by less than 40 cents across the front months. The April futures lost 6.3k contracts of OI, while CME had June and August up slightly on Monday. Live cattle have a call/put ratio of 1.4339 calls to each put via CME data. Feeder cattle futures were also 50 cents off their lows for the close, but stayed triple digits weaker for the day. USDA had minimal cash activity for Monday, the bulk of cash cattle prices last week were $1 to $2 above the previous week. USDA reported 6,750 head was sold in the weekly OKC Feeder Auction. Of the sale, 45% were steers/54% heifers, and 74% were sub-600lbs. The 3/8 CME Feeder Cattle Index was 50 cents lower to $248.24.
USDA’s Wholesale Boxed Beef prices were stronger on Monday with Choice up by $1.84 and Select $1.45 stronger. Federally inspected cattle slaughter was estimated at 111,000 head for Monday. That is 5k head behind last week and is nearly 11k head under the same week last year.
Apr 24 Cattle closed at $187.600, down $0.000,
Jun 24 Cattle closed at $183.025, down $0.400,
Aug 24 Cattle closed at $182.050, down $0.200,
Mar 24 Feeder Cattle closed at $248.250, down $0.950
Apr 24 Feeder Cattle closed at $253.100, down $1.000
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