As of last Tuesday, managed money, a proxy for large commodity investment funds, had raised their collective net long position in live cattle futures for the third straight week. The data came from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s weekly Commitments of Traders report Monday.  The report, delayed from its usual Friday release date by the … Read More

When fed cattle production costs of various weights in Illinois were compared, there were only small differences in returns, said Bradley Zwilling, agricultural economist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in farmdocdaily. Looking at different factors involved in fed cattle production (outside of costs to produce but including feed and purchase cost of cattle), … Read More

The seasonal feeder cattle price slide in the Northern Plains is steep this fall compared with last year, said Matthew Diersen, risk and business management specialist at South Dakota State University’s Ness School of Management, in a letter to Extension agents from the Livestock Marketing Information Center called In The Cattle Markets. This is the … Read More

Farmland values surged in the third quarter according to Federal Reserve surveys of agricultural credit conditions, said a study by Federal Reserve Economists Nathan Kauffman and Ty Kreitman, in a release. The value of non-irrigated cropland increased by 12% or more in all participating districts, averaging about 15%, the economists said.  The rapid increase also … Read More

Total red meat supplies in freezers on Oct. 31 were up about 1% from September but down about 3% from last year, said the USDA’s monthly Cold Storage report Monday. Total pounds of beef in freezers were up about 9% from September but down about 5% from last year. Frozen pork supplies were down about … Read More

For the second straight week, managed money, a proxy for large commodity investment firms, took on a larger collective net long position in live cattle futures, data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed. The data was published in the weekly CFTC Commitments of Traders report Friday with data as of Tuesday, which also showed … Read More

The CME futures market appears to be providing some incentives for producers to deliver cattle at later dates, said Elliott Dennis, livestock extension economist, at the University of Nebraska, in a Livestock Marketing Information Center release. As of Oct. 25, there was about $2-3 per cwt of increase between contracts with Jan trading at $158.90 … Read More