Cattle Futures Front and Center
Livestock markets work back higher in Wednesday’s trade. Are new highs in the cards to round out the week?
Live Cattle (February)
Live cattle futures gained some ground yesterday posting a high that was about .25 away from the contract high. Despite the continued strength the RSI is still below what is considered to be overbought with a reading of 67.95 at yesterday’s close. Funds are aggressively long live cattle but still shy of a record. Keep in mind that we have seen Funds take net long positions well past the old record in lean hogs and feeder cattle here recently.
Resistance: 199.57-200.00***
Pivot: 196.20-197.00
Support: 194.40-194.85***, 192.00-192.70***
Daily Cattle and Beef Summary
Cutout values were mixed on Wednesday with choice cuts 1.16 higher to 334.14 and select cuts .67 lower to 318.04. Wednesday’s slaughter was reported at 124k head, 2k more than the previous week and 8k more than the same day last year. The 5-area average price for live steers came in at 204.67.
The CME feeder Cattle Index is down .27 to 278.04 with the NBW Real-Time Index showing 278.55 as of this morning, down .35 from yesterday morning.
Weekly Export Sales Snapshot
Net sales of 9,700 MT for 2025 primarily for Japan (3,600 MT, including decreases of 300 MT), China (3,500 MT, including decreases of 100 MT), South Korea (800 MT, including decreases of 600 MT), Canada (600 MT), and Taiwan (600 MT, including decreases of 100 MT), were offset by reductions for Mexico (700 MT) and Chile (100 MT). Exports of 14,000 MT were primarily to Japan (3,800 MT), South Korea (3,600 MT), China (2,600 MT), Mexico (1,200 MT), and Taiwan (900 MT).
Seasonal Tendency Update
(updated 1.13.25)
Below is a look at historical price averages for February futures on a 5, 10, 15, 20, and 30 year time frames (Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results).

Commitment of Traders Update
(Updated on 1.14.25, new updates will be out after today’s close)
Monday’s Commitment of Traders report showed Funds were net buyers of about 14k contracts, expanding their net long position to 143,456. Within a stone’s throw of the record 152,634. Quite possibly we are there since this recent report is only through last Tuesday.

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