Cattle Close Mixed on Thursday

Feeder cattle prices rallied into the close and ended just off the day’s highs with 32 to 55 cent gains. The fats stayed red, but ended just 2 to 62 cents lower in the front months. Thursday’s FCE auction sold 282 of the 1,347 head listed fr $135. The unsold cattle saw $135 bids to $137-139 asks. USDA confirmed more $136 trades in KS for Thursday. TX and the North were $136 and $139-$142 earlier this week respectively. The CME Feeder Cattle Index was $170.67 on 7/20 after another $1.75 drop.  

Going into Friday’s Cattle Inventory report, the average trade guess is to see a 2.1% drop in all cattle and calves. The beef breeding herd is estimated 2.6% lighter. Analyst estimates average for a 2% drop in 2021 calf crop.  

Weekly beef bookings were 23,800 MT according to the Export Sales report. That was 97% above the 4-week average. South Korea was the top buyer with 7.7k MT, though China also added 3.1k MT to the books. Beef exports were 19,600 MT, including 5.8k to Japan, 5.5k MT to South Korea, and 3.3k MT to China. Accumulated shipments reached 518,475 MT through 7/14. 

USDA’s Wholesale Boxed Beef prices weakened again on Thursday as Choice dropped by $2.77 and Select was down by $1.72. USDA estimated FI cattle slaughter for the week through Thursday at 497k head. That is down from 500k last week but up from 472k head during the same week last year. 

Aug 22 Cattle  closed at $135.725, down $0.025,

Oct 22 Cattle  closed at $140.975, down $0.350,

Dec 22 Cattle  closed at $146.325, down $0.500,

Aug 22 Feeder Cattle  closed at $178.275, up $0.450

Sep 22 Feeder Cattle  closed at $181.300, up $0.325