Tuesday Cattle Pull Back

Excluding a 25 cent gain in Dec fats, live cattle ended the Tuesday session with 12 to 30 cent losses. The Monday morning CHART gap for Feb WAS within 2.5 cents of being filled at the low, but remained open. The FCE auction for Tuesday saw $151-$152 bids for the 1,223 head listed, but no sales were made on $152-$153 asks. USDA confirmed another light to nonexistent cash trade market on Tuesday. Feeder cattle prices also stalled on Tuesday. Jan dropped net 95 cents on the day, and closed its gap out of the weekend. Front month losses firmed through the contracts as April was only down 12 cents at the bell and May ’23 gained 15 cents. The 11/21 Feeder Cattle Index from CME was flat at $174.64. 

USDA Cold Storage data confirmed 509.95m lbs of beef was in the cooler as of the last Saturday in October. That was a 3% drop from September stocks and a new low for the year. Compared to October 2021, stocks were still up 36.2m lbs, but the yr/yr difference was 86.5m lbs last month. 

Wholesale Boxed Beef prices were higher in the PM report with a $1.06 increase in Choice and a $0.95 increase in Select. USDA estimated Tuesday’s federally inspected cattle slaughter at 129k head. That set the week’s total at 257k head, matching last week’s pace.  

Dec 22 Cattle  closed at $153.800, up $0.250,

Feb 23 Cattle  closed at $156.425, down $0.300,

Apr 23 Cattle  closed at $159.900, down $0.225,

Jan 23 Feeder Cattle  closed at $181.675, down $0.950

Mar 23 Feeder Cattle  closed at $184.575, down $0.525