Cold Snap Helping Live Cattle

This is Matt Rice with the Market Line Report for Dec. 14th. Frigid temperatures putting some fire under the live cattle market as demand picks up along with future prices. Let's go to Scott Shellady as he covers the grain market from the floor of the CME in Chicago.

Shellady "Live cattle interesting today, we saw a good move to the upside and there's a few reasons for that. We'll start with the fact that we've had decent demand, traders are looking for cash prices to rise as well as a cold snap that has sent us to 17 week highs. Those kind of things together are kind of the reason we got off to a good start in the beginning. Now on top of that we've got the Fed effect, so that's kind of gotten the market a little bit locked up here. We don't see a ton of trading, if that's the case I think the bulls tend to win in those situations."

As we take a look at those Chicago markets, May Wheat prices closed the day up ½, at 428. Chicago May Corn prices were up ½, to close the day at 368 ¼. Prices in Portland for Soft White Wheat of ordinary protein for April were unch- up ½, ranging from 4-60 to 4-63 ¼. Hard Red Winter Wheat with 11.5 % protein, future prices for April were up ½, ranging from 5-06 ¾ to 5-11 ¾. DNS Wheat with 14 % protein, prices for March were dn ¾, ranging from 6-48 ½ to 6-63 ½. April Live Cattle closed the day up $1.02 ½, at 113.12 ½. April Feeder cattle were up $1.22 ½, at 125.15. Feb. class III milk was dn 14 cents at 17-48.