Live cattle closed with 17 to 42 cent losses on Friday, though the feeders held onto 27 to 35 cent front month gains. Feb live cattle finished the week with a net 80c gain, while March feeders were a net $3.55 higher. Cash trade remained light this week, with some 6500 sales added on Friday near $172-$173. The 1/11 CME Feeder Cattle Index was $228 flat, up by 25 cents.
Weekly CFTC data had spec traders net selling cattle during the week that ended 1/9. That reduced the group’s net long to 13,770 contracts – the weakest since May of ’22. Spec traders added 801 contracts to their feeder cattle position during the week, on net reducing their net short by 249 to 2,277.
USDA’s monthly beef production outlook raised the 2023 total by 35 million lbs to 26.967 billion. The outlook for 2024 was also raised by 120m to 26.11 billion.
USDA’s Wholesale Boxed Beef prices for Friday afternoon were shown at $289.26 for Choice and $271.85 for Select. That was up by $3.37 for Choice and was $1.91 stronger for Select. USDA’s weekly beef production data showed 465.2m lbs were produced during the week. That is 0.2% below last week’s volume and down 14.7% from the same week last year. Slaughter totaled 549k head for the week, also 0.4% below last week and down 16.9% from the same week last year.
Feb 24 Cattle closed at $171.375, down $0.425,
Apr 24 Cattle closed at $174.175, down $0.400,
Jun 24 Cattle closed at $171.625, down $0.350,
Jan 24 Feeder Cattle closed at $226.575, up $0.300
Mar 24 Feeder Cattle closed at $227.700, up $0.300
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