Managed money, those large commodity investment funds, whittled a little more off their collective net long live cattle futures position during the week ended Tuesday, as hedgers held to a near-flat net short position.
In its weekly Commitments of Traders report Friday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said managed money’s new net long cattle position as of Tuesday totaled 77,695 contracts, down 757, or 0.96%, from 78,452 the previous week.
At the same time, commercial traders, those who own the cattle at some point in their lives and are hedgers primarily, held a collective net short position of 151,546 contracts, down 544, or 0.36%, from 152,090 the previous week.
To get to their new net long cattle position, managed money liquidated 954 long positions, covered 197 short positions and unwound 3,198 spread positions, the CFTC said. This left them representing 29.5% of total long open interest, 6.0% of total short open interest and 13.0% of total spread open interest.
Commercial traders got to their new short cattle position by liquidating 3,825 long positions and covering 4,369 short positions, leaving them in control of 9.7% of total long open interest and 55.7% of total short open interest.
CME Group data shows that total live cattle open interest as of Tuesday was 330,105 contracts, down 11,538, or 3.38%, from 341,643 the week before.
CME data also showed that the most-active Dec futures contract made a net gain from Tuesday to Tuesday after dipping to a one-month low in between. The contract settled Tuesday at $117.77 per cwt, up from $117.15 the week before, but in between, on Friday set a swing low of $116.02. The contract continued declining into Friday.
FUNDS BREAK ZERO, GET LONG CORN
After holding a net short CME Group corn futures position for four months, managed money broke into net long territory during the week ended Tuesday by 21,258 contracts. This was up from being net short by 194,331 contracts the week before, a rise of 215,589.
As of Tuesday, commercial corn traders held a net short position of 288,086 contracts, up 47,112, or 19.6%, from 240,974 the previous week and their largest net short position since July 3 when it was 289,594.
CFTC data shows managed money arrived at its new corn position by adding 6,825 long positions, covering 53,832 short positions and unwinding 4,990 spread positions. This left them representing 16.0% of total long open interest, 14.7% of total short open interest and 11.3% of total spread open interest.
The CFTC also said commercials got to where they were by liquidating 18,172 long positions and adding 28,940 short positions, leaving them holding 27.6% of total long open interest and 45.3% of total short open interest.
Total corn open interest fell to 1.623 million contracts from 1.650 million, down 26,365, or 1.60%.
CATTLE, BEEF RECAP
Cash cattle trading was reported last week in the Plains at $110.50 to $111 per cwt on a live basis, steady to up $0.50 from the previous week. On a dressed basis, activity was reported at $174 to $175, steady to $1 higher.
The USDA choice cutout Friday was up $1.11 per cwt at $207.93, while select was up $1.89 at $194.24. The choice/select spread narrowed to $13.69 from $14.47 with 64 loads of fabricated product sold into the spot market.
There were 10 heifer delivery tenders and five steer delivery notices Friday at zero and eight steer retenders at two.
The CME Feeder Cattle index for the seven days ended Thursday, was $155.36 per cwt, down $0.14. This compares with Friday’s Oct settlement of $154.65, down $0.60.