Reluctant trade
Here’s your Meat Market Minute for this week:
Live cattle trade had not occurred by the time most weekly publications went to press, so you could say it was running late. Packer bids were collected at $118 while feeders were asking $123; analysts expected some trade to occur at or below the last weeks’ values ($121). Federally inspected harvest was reported at 653,000, much larger than expected given that packers had a significant amount of inventory.
Cutout values were down across all grades, and the spreads narrowed significantly for both CAB/CH (down $1.60/cwt.) and CH/SE (down $3.10). Buyers remain conservative in their purchasing because of downside risk in the market and lackluster demand at the retail case.
CAB production, as measured by acceptance for the first week of January, jumped back above 20% from 19% the week prior when that number had shown its only setback in December. The share of cattle that are Angus type continues to show relative strength especially considering that steers represented more than 64% of the fed-cattle harvest.
Until we meat again,
-David
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