NATIONAL FEEDER & STOCKER CATTLE SUMMARY – WEEK ENDING 04/06/2024
By USDA-MO Dept of Ag Market News
RECEIPTS: Auctions Direct Video/Internet Total
This Week: 157,600 22,000 58,500 238,100
Last Week: 129,400 23,300 5,200 157,900
Year Ago: 166,300 48,800 4,300 219,400
Compared to last week, steers and heifers sold 2.00 to 7.00 lower. Feeder cattle offerings were light to moderate this week, due to the seasonality of feeder cattle marketing and poor weather early in the week at Northern Plains locations.
Demand remains good for light cattle to run on this summers’ grass, but the market is weaker now that the futures complex has rolled back substantially. The CME Cattle Complex was significantly lower on the week with Live Cattle Contracts from 6.75 to 8.22 lower for the week. Feeder Cattle contracts were from 9.42 lower to 10.52 lower in the same time period after taking major losses on Monday and Friday. The weakness in the futures market was too much for cattle producers to just brush off as they did the week before.
Grass is greening up, and numbers of grass type cattle are more limited but with the Feeder Cattle futures for the fall months at 250.00, instead of the 270.00 level where they were at three weeks ago, is forcing backgrounders and feeders to readjust their plans. Cash fed cattle felt the pressure from the board as well and were lower as well.
The extreme bullishness that many cattle producers possessed has been dealt a large blow as this is the time of year where fed cattle supplies normally are the tightest and now the futures have gone the opposite direction.
Live sales of negotiated cash fed cattle trade in the Southern Plains sold 1.00 to 2.00 lower at 183.00 to 184.00. In Nebraska, live sales sold 2.00 to 3.00 lower at 187.00, while the dressed sales sold steady to 1.00 lower at 297.00. Choice boxed beef closed the week 9.55 lower at 297.17 while Select was 8.73 lower at 294.70 for the same period.
Weekly Cattle Slaughter under federal inspection estimated at 609K, 23K more than last week and 4K more than a year ago.
Auction volume this week included 50% weighing over 600 lbs and 45% heifers.
