Large commodity investment funds, called managed money, backed off from their recent trend toward getting longer live cattle futures during the week ended Tuesday and trimmed their collective net long position.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said in its weekly Commitments of Traders report Friday that as of Tuesday, managed money’s new net long cattle position stood at 78,452 contracts, down 2,642, or 3.26%, from 81,094 the previous week.
At the same time, commercial traders, those who own the cattle at some point and are mostly hedgers, adjusted their net short position slightly to 152,090 contracts, up 1,443, or 0.96%, from 150,647.
The CFTC said managed money arrived at its new long cattle position by liquidating 214 long positions, adding 2,428 short positions and putting on 6,558 new spread positions. This left their position representing 28.8% of total long open interest, 5.9% of total short open interest and 13.5% of total spread open interest.
The CFTC also said commercial traders got to their new short cattle position by adding six long positions and 1,449 short positions, leaving them in control of 10.5% of total long open interest and 55.1% of total short open interest.
The CME Group said total live cattle open interest as of Tuesday stood at 341,643 contracts, up 5,110, or 1.52%, from 336,533 the previous Tuesday.
CME Group data also showed that the most-active Dec contract fell during the CFTC week to settle at $117.15 per cwt, compared with $119.47 a week before.
FUNDS STILL GETTING LESS SHORT CORN
During the same CFTC week, managed money continued to get less short CME Group corn futures. Their new position is short by 39,399 contracts, down 27,988, or 41.5%, from 67,387 the week before and their lowest short position since June 12 when it was short by 12,238 contracts.
The CFTC also said that as of Tuesday, commercial traders held a net short position of 240,974 contracts, up 2,785, or 1.17%, from 238,189 the previous Tuesday.
The CFTC said managed money arrived at its new short corn position by adding 3,909 long positions, covering 24,079 short positions and placing 5,328 new spread positions. This left them representing 15.3% of total long open interest, 17.7% of total short open interest and 11.4% of total spread open interest.
Commercials got to where they were Tuesday by liquidating 17,555 long positions and covering 14,770 short positions, leaving them in control of 28.2% of total long open interest and 42.8% of total short open interest.
The CME Group said total corn open interest fell during the CFTC week to 1.650 million contracts, down 34,361, or 2.04%, from 1.684 million.
The CME Group said the most-active Dec corn contract declined during the week to settle Tuesday at $3.64 ½ a bushel from $3.67 ½, a decline of $0.03, or 0.82%.
CATTLE, BEEF RECAP
Cattle sales last week were reported at $110 to $111 per cwt, steady to $1 lower than the previous week. Dressed sales were reported at $173 to $174 per cwt, steady to down $1.
The USDA choice cutout Friday was up $0.20 per cwt at $202.71, while select was down $0.21 at $192.28. The choice/select spread widened to $10.43 from $10.02 with 87 loads of fabricated product sold into the spot market.
There were 27 steer delivery notices Friday and no heifers at zero. There also was one retender of heifers at one and one demand for heifers at one.
The CME Feeder Cattle index for the seven days ended Thursday, was $157.48 per cwt, down $0.89. This compares with Friday’s Oct settlement of $154.70, down $2.02.