06/28/05 Cattle market shrugs off BSE case

American Rancher June 28, 2005 Cattle futures at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange opened lower Monday but ended the day in positive territory. It was the first trading session since USDA confirmed Friday that a U.S. cow previously not thought to have BSE, did indeed have the disease. DTN chief livestock analyst John Harrington was surprised by the strength of the market. Harrington says that instead of reacting emotionally, traders and consumers alike are seeing the threat of BSE for what it is, almost non-existent. Harrington: "It remains a very small, very rare cattle disease that has linkage to an even rarer human disease. You put that all together and you get a big shrug." Still, Harrington says cattle market fundamentals look far from bullish and that was the case before Friday's news. Harrington: "We were kind of in trouble before this BSE news hit. A matter of building beef supplies. A matter of weak seasonal demand. Larger carcasses. Of course still the retarded export demand. All that has added up to a sinking feeling in the beef market. This is something we didn't need." Harrington sees the cattle market drifting lower for much of the summer.