Large commodity index funds, known as managed money, sold live cattle futures during the week ended Tuesday as hedgers covered many of their short positions, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s weekly Commitments of Traders report Friday.
MANAGED MONEY SELLS CATTLE
As of Tuesday, managed money had a collective net long live cattle position of 90,394 contracts, down 7,377, or 7.55%, from 97,771 a week earlier, resuming a downtrend in their net long position that began the week of July 18 and was only interrupted by last Tuesday’s (Aug. 15) bump.
Hedgers, better known as commercial traders since they own, or could own, the cattle traded in the futures market, had a total net short position Tuesday of 121,385 contracts, down 7,627, or 5.91%, from 129,012 a week earlier.
The CFTC said managed money arrived at their new net long cattle position by liquidating 6,867 long positions, adding 510 short positions and putting on 1,362 new spread positions. This left them in control of 33.6% of total long open interest, 3.6% of total short open interest and 15.3% of total spread open interest.
Commercial traders got to where they were Tuesday by liquidating 581 long positions and covering 8,208 short positions, leaving them holding 11.2% of total long open interest and 51.5% of total short open interest.
The CME Group published data showing total live cattle open interest Tuesday was 305,563 contracts, down 3,732, or 1.21%, from 309,295 a week earlier.
CME data also showed that the most-active Oct contract declined in value during the CFTC-reporting week to settle Tuesday at $178.62 per cwt, compared with $179.97 a week earlier.
FUNDS SELL MORE CORN
Tuesday, managed money had a collective net short Chicago corn futures position of 121,612 contracts, up 34,988, or 40.4%, from 86,624 a week earlier, their fourth straight week of sell-offs.
Commercials, Tuesday, had a total net short position of 93,755 contracts, down 26,701, or 22.2%, from 120,456 a week earlier, making managed money more net short than commercials.
The CFTC said managed money arrived at their new corn position by liquidating 7,272 long positions, adding 27,716 short positions and putting on 5,401 new spread positions. This left them in control of 12.4% of total long open interest, 23.7% of total short open interest and 12.5% of total spread open interest.
Commercials got to where they were Tuesday by adding 9,299 long positions and covering 17,302 short positions, leaving them holding 32.6% of total long open interest and 39.8% of total short open interest.
The CME Group said total corn open interest was 1.301 million contracts, up from 1.272 million a week earlier.
CATTLE, BEEF RECAP
The USDA reported formula and contract base prices for live FOB steers and heifers last week ranged from $178.86 per cwt to $189.46, compared with the previous week’s range of $180.00 to $193.09 per cwt. FOB dressed steers, and heifers went for $283.80 per cwt to $293.58, compared with $283.74 to $293.54.
The USDA choice cutout Friday was up $0.27 per cwt at $317.90 while select was up $0.76 at $292.67. The choice/select spread narrowed to $25.23 from $25.72 with 72 loads of fabricated product and eight loads of trimmings and grinds sold into the spot market.
The USDA said basis bids for corn from feeders in the Southern Plains were unchanged at $1.70 to $1.90 a bushel over the Sep corn contract, which settled at $4.70 3/4 a bushel, down $0.01 1/2.
No contracts were tendered for delivery against the Aug cattle contract Friday.
The CME Feeder Cattle Index for the seven days ended Thursday was $245.59 per cwt, up $0.45. This compares with Friday’s Aug contract settlement of $247.62 per cwt, up $1.25, and Sep’s $251.20, up $0.45.