Large commodity investment firms, called managed money, shaved their near-record-large net long live cattle futures position in the week ended Thursday, said the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in its weekly Commitments of Traders report Friday. Managed money’s new net long live cattle position was 131,370 contracts, down only 315, or 0.24%, from 131,685 the previous … Read More

The USDA’s Economic Research Service reduced its 2017 US commercial beef production forecast by almost 150 million pounds from October to 26.4 billion pounds on fewer fourth-quarter steer and heifer marketings and lighter carcass weights. Thursday’s Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry Outlook said data on federally inspected slaughter indicate that significantly more cows were being slaughtered … Read More

Total numbers of cattle on feed in Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada turned upward slightly in October, said CanFax, a private market analysis firm based in Calgary, Alberta. The USDA is scheduled to release its own monthly US Cattle on Feed report showing October feedlot population activity at 3:00 pm ET.  It is expected to show … Read More

Current cattle markets can be thought of as a series of bad news-good news stories, said Oklahoma State University Extension Livestock Marketing Specialist Derrell Peel in the Extension Service’s Cow/Calf Corner. The bad news is that cash fed cattle prices dipped last week from the previous week’s highs, Peel said.  The good news is that … Read More

Large commodity investment funds, called managed money, had their largest net long live cattle futures position since the week ended April 25 as of Tuesday after adding to their position for the ninth week. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data Monday showed that for the week ended Tuesday, managed money had a net long live cattle … Read More

Have cash cattle prices reached a seasonal top?  The answer is a strong maybe. Fed cattle traded in the Plains last week, steady to $1 per cwt lower than the previous week, a move some analysts link to last week’s drop in futures.  It also was a move that some say established the previous week’s … Read More

US livestock and poultry feeding was expected to remain economical for the foreseeable future after the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service caught grain markets flat-footed Thursday with an unusually large 3.6-bushel-an-acre jump in its US yield estimate for corn. The result was a boost in estimated corn production to a record 14.578 billion bushels.  The … Read More