After trimming their collective net long live cattle futures positions for a week, large commodity investment funds resumed their four-month-long buying trend during the week ended Tuesday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Friday. The CFTC revealed the net long position of those funds, called managed money in the trade, in its weekly Commitments of … Read More

Grain and feed markets are getting ready for the first initial estimates of how much US acreage will be devoted to each crop, and position evening often is the rule of the day for many. The March 29 USDA Prospective Plantings report will provide that initial indication of potential acreage allotments and set the tone … Read More

The Federal Open Market Committee on Wednesday left the key Federal Funds interest rate at 2.25% to 2.5% and signaled its concerns for the US economy this year. The FOMC raised interest rates by 0.25% three times in 2018 in an attempt to control inflation, which is a by-product of a fast-growing economy.  Raising interest … Read More

The number of cattle on feed in Canadian feedlots is following traditional patterns but at a consistently higher level, according to CanFax, a Canadian market advisory company. CanFax only gathers data from the main cattle-feeding provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan and disseminates it to its members.  The Denver-based Livestock Marketing Information Center compiles the numbers … Read More

It’s been in the news, but it bears repeating – flooding and the potential for more are threatening or damaging roads, bridges, farms, homes and whole towns in the Central and Northern Plains and western Midwest. Sonja Begemann, Farm Journal seeds and crop production editor, penned a story for AgWeb that lays out the threat … Read More

After 14 straight weeks of net long position gains, managed money cut their collective live cattle position in the week ended Tuesday, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The data came from the CFTC’s weekly Commitments of Traders report Friday and said the net long live cattle position of managed money, a … Read More

The dairy cow herd declined 3,000 head in December, the fourth straight month of reductions, according to data from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service and estimates from the Livestock Marketing Information Center. The LMIC said sequestration suspended data from March to July of 2013 from NASS, so the data includes LMIC estimates for this … Read More