Live cattle, feeder cattle, and lean hogs were all lower on today’s trade. Here’s how things shook out at the close.
It was a sea of red in today’s livestock trade with live cattle, feeder cattle, and lean hogs all finishing the session lower. At the close October live cattle was 70 cents lower settling at 179.975. Technicians will be looking to see if the 50-day moving average can act as support, which hasn’t been tested since breaking out above it in May. That comes in at 178.90. On the feeder cattle side of things, October finished the day 30 cents to settle at 251.55, this despite a weaker corn market which is often looked at as a potential tailwind for the market. All in all, the market remains mostly range bound. The leader to the downside today, lean hogs. At the close October lean hogs were 95 cents lower, settling at 78.20.
Yesterday afternoon’s wholesale boxed beef report very strong and this mornings was more of the same choice cuts up 1.97 to 307.47 and select cuts gaining $2.70 to 283.15. Yesterday’s 5-area average price for live steers was reported at 185.88 with dressed steer prices reported at 295.60, both are fairly steady with what we’ve seen in recent weeks. Historically the month of August is a time of year where the markets tend to consolidate or trade lower. Whether or not that will play out this year or not is still to be determined.
Yesterday’s daily slaughter was reported at 119,000 head, 4,000 less than last week and 2,000 head less than the same day last year.Â