Holiday beef shopping done?
December 12,2011
Here’s this week’s Meat Market Minute:
The live cattle market showed its first indication of seasonal weakness coming off of holiday highs. According to CattleFax, fed cattle traded at $120 in the South and at $121 in the North, approximately $4/cwt less than the previous week. This comes as packers continue to curb production (16,000 head less than previous week) in response to their position in the market, and that could work to their advantage in live cattle prices. Moving forward, packers will continue to lessen harvest due to holiday shortened production weeks and lower demand. By the way, the 2010 federally inspected harvest for the last three weeks of December were (in thousands): 659.8, 544.9 and 566.6.
Cutout values were down across all grades and quality levels last week: CAB -$3.30, CH -$3.80, SE -$2.70. Much of the downturn was attributed to weakness in demand for holiday ribs, simply because virtually all of those purchases have already been made. With no other news in the market, buyers’ interest has been lackluster; they see the downward trend and don’t want to commit to buy at current prices.
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