Download PDF The hairline cracks in pork demand started to grow a little biggerthis week. The pork cutout dropped $3.68/cwt. to average$99.53. That is the first sub-$100 cutout since the first week ofFebruary. As is typical, the negotiated hog market followed thecutout lower, and the NDD market lost $2.27/cwt. All of thathasn’t yet been reflected …
Download PDF The margin squeeze on beef packers is getting more intense. Thisweek’s margin only registered $68/head and next week could beeven smaller. That is the result of a mostly steady cash cattlemarket and falling beef cutouts. The Choice cutout lost $3.25/cwt.and the Select was down $3.40/cwt. The fact that cash cattle wereable to trade …
Download PDF This felt like a bad week for the hog and pork complex, but I’m notsure that the story the data are telling is as bad as the futuresmarket implies. Certainly, traders turned bearish in a big way,driving the front of the futures curve down $4-5/cwt this week.That action was precipitated by growing dark …
Download PDF It was another bad week for packers, with the cutouts tracking lowerand the cash cattle market moving higher. On a weekly averagebasis, the Choice cutout lost $4.78/cwt. and the Select cutout wasdown $7.07/cwt. Cash cattle averaged about $1.30/cwt. over lastweek and packers bought a lot more animals than they did the weekbefore. Perhaps …
Download PDF This was a constructive week for pork packers. They managedto move the cutout higher while at the same time keeping somepressure on the cash hog market. That helped to restore theirmargins back to about $15/head, which is much more typicalfor this time of year than the negative margins that they postednear the end …
Download PDF The cash cattle market was essentially steady this week, averaging$142.79, up $0.31 from last week. Prices in the North were steadyto slightly lower and prices in the South were steady to slightlyhigher. The price gap between the North and South has narrowedto the point where it isn’t much of an issue anymore. The …
Download PDF The pork cutout advanced a tiny bit this week, gaining $0.79 toaverage $103.20/cwt. That gain stands in sharp contrast to prices inthe hog market, which were sharply lower. The WCB negotiatedmarket dropped $6.49/cwt this week and the LHI lost $5.80/cwt.The LHI has now lost $15 in just 2 weeks. One might think thatwould …
Download PDF Once again, it was “steady as she goes” in the cattle and beefcomplex. The Choice cutout lost only $0.46/cwt. this week andthe Select was down $2.17/cwt. The cash cattle marketaveraged about $0.50/cwt. below last week’s average. Thefutures market moved about $1 higher on the week, with all ofthat coming on Friday once market …
Download PDF The hog and pork complex remained on the defensive thisweek and the main feature was a huge $18/cwt drop inreported negotiated prices. The WCB negotiated marketaveraged $107.38 this week, down from a little over $125 theweek before. It isn’t all that unusual to see the negotiatedmarket follow the cutout down after a big …
Download PDF The cash cattle market slipped lower again this week, averaging$142.82, down almost $2 from the week before. That decline wasaccompanied by further softness in the cutouts, with the Choicedropping $3.56 to average $259.73 for the week, while the Selectwas up $0.85 to average $239.07. However, the cutouts werestrengthening late in the week and …