Large commodity investment firms, known as managed money, nudged their collective net long live cattle futures position higher for the third straight time 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. The report showed that managed money’s … Read More

The USDA’s wholesale spread between the price of choice beef and select beef is at record-wide levels and appears to be widening – likely the result of strong beef demand, said Nevil Speer, industry consultant in Bowling Green, KY. Beef production this year is up, and carcass grading was not hurt going through the harsh … Read More

While there were no great surprises in either the USDA Cattle on Feed or the mid-year Cattle (inventory) reports there were a few items of interest that, taken together, might suggest the cattle herd has been a little overestimated the last couple of years. Texas A&M Extension Economist David Anderson said so in a letter … Read More

If there’s a seasonality to replacing some of the corn in feedlot cattle diets with wheat, it’ll happen in the summer.  And this is what is happening this year. Summer is when the winter wheat harvest is done, and the corn harvest is a couple of months away.  Supplies of the two are out of … Read More

The total volume of red meat in US freezers as of June 30 was down about 2% from last month and down slightly from last year, while poultry supplies were up from a month earlier but down from a year earlier, according to the USDA’s monthly Cold Storage report Monday. The data from the USDA’s … Read More

The consensus among cattle market analysts after Friday’s monthly USDA Cattle on Feed report and the semi-annual Cattle (inventory) report was that there were no big surprises. The Cattle on Feed report revealed numbers that were so close to average pre-release estimates that traders who missed the mark either higher or lower will cancel each … Read More

The US corn market will continue to be volatile, with any weather news affecting prices, but understanding how changing corn price affects feeder cattle prices can aid in management and marketing decisions. That came from Brenda Boetel, agricultural economist at the University of Wisconsin, in a letter to Extension agents from the Livestock Marketing Information … Read More