“Shootin’ The Bull”
by Christopher B Swift
5/06/2026
Live Cattle:
There appears very little left to the supply side story of cattle. Herd liquidation has stopped, congestion of pricing is taking place from the center of the plate up to the backgrounder, and inverted carry spreads of futures are producing a pretty hefty positive basis for which to manage the risk of continually increasing input costs. With a belief that beef is not in support of the current cattle prices, cattle feeders are placing fewer cattle, and now backgrounders entering into deeper negative margins, it is possible that the industry may need an abrupt round of rationing. At this time, I think that could come as easily from a $50.00 move higher as lower. Possibly, both in a very short period of time. If going to move higher, the above makes for a pretty steep wall of worry to climb. If going lower, the above will be obvious.
Feeder Cattle:
Backgrounders continue to delve deeper into negative margins to acquire inventory. Cattle feeders have slowed placements to a snails crawl for months. Backgrounders continue to see the spreads widen between feeder cattle and lighter weight inventory. Again, it appears there is great congestion of pricing from the center of the plate up to the backgrounder, yet the backgrounder continues to fill a lot of capacity with less cattle to utilize the capacity with even more expensive inventory. I can't say that anything stated will have any impact on price fluctuation or your decisions, but if they do catch your attention, you can do something about it.
Corn:
All ended lower again today. As they rose with energy, they most likely are down on energy. Wheat is the only outlier. It came well off its lows and believed to have made a bottom of a correction of significance. I anticipate wheat to trade higher and if stopped out on this pull back, I recommend buying December KC or Chicago wheat with a sell stop to exit only at today's low. This is a sales solicitation.
Energy:
Energy continued lower from Tuesday. I anticipate a great deal more of on again, off again deals with Iran to keep energy from settling down. Today's abrupt move lower looks similar to prices having fallen off a cliff. I anticipate the next most probable move is for prices to climb back to the levels they just fell from.
Bonds:
Bonds are higher. Price action today appears as somebody was tasked with buying bonds and notes, whether they wanted to or not, that has helped send the equities market soaring today. The President appears to be pumping hard to keep air in the economic balloon, with so many holes in it.
“This is intended to be or is in the nature of a solicitation.” Futures trading is not for everyone. The risk of loss in trading futures can be substantial; therefore, carefully consider whether such trading is suitable for you in light of your financial condition. Past performance is not indicative of future results, and there is no assurance that your trading experience will be similar to the past performance.
