Cattle Trade Choppy

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

Not much movement in the cattle markets lately. Certainly not the volatility we saw in previous months. Virginia McGathey thinks that has a lot to do with short term bearish fundamentals, but long term bullishness from traders.

McGathey… “Cattle was a little bit easier. Futures trade is really choppy in that market right now, but it kind of indicates that the traders are really optimistic that strong demand is ahead. That's why this market hasn't been pushed any lower. But we have to be careful though, because the boxed beef prices are still weak and they are on the decline. So we're going to need a little bit of a reversal on that. It's interesting that futures are kind of outpacing that, but that spread has been pretty wide for a while, and it's starting to come back in. Feeders were mixed today. That USDA report is going to be key for the market direction. As the Cattle on Feed report came out, we have the weekend to digest it and figure out what we're going to do on Monday. But for the short term, demand will be the number one driver. Also as the U.S. economy starts to open up, that's going to be very positive for the beef complex as a whole.”

Live cattle futures slipped another $0.70 on Friday to $95.40 on the August board. Feeder cattle were down $0.42 ½ to $132.55.

Some better news, Class III Milk continued it’s climb, up another $0.75 on Friday to $21.18.