A Choppy Livestock Trade Presents Shorter Term Opportunities
Livestock markets chop around as headlines continue to push and pull prices, creating shorter term trading opportunities for participants on both sides of the market.
Live Cattle (April) April live cattle futures traded below the prior day’s low but rebounded quickly to settle right back in our resistance pocket from 196.00-196.60. If the Bulls can chew through and clear this hurdle, we could see a continuation of the relief rally take prices towards 197.92-198.70. A failure to find their footing could keep things choppy and rangebound. This morning’s non-farm payroll report and other economic data was all on the softer side of things, but it didn’t seem to be soft enough to incite a risk-off trade in the outside markets.
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Daily Cattle and Beef Summary Cutout values were mixed on Thursday afternoon with choice cuts .42 lower to 313.12 and select cuts .98 higher to 303.51. Tuesday’s slaughter was reported at 120k head.
The CME feeder Cattle Index is at 276.09 with the NBW Real-Time Index showing 273.97 as of this morning. |
Seasonal Tendency Update (updated 3.3.25) Below is a look at historical price averages for April 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
Friday’s Commitment of Traders report showed Funds net long 121,311 futures and options contracts, this was the fourth week of net selling.
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Feeder Cattle (April)
April feeder cattle futures posted an inside day yesterday, trading within the previous day’s range. Resistance appears to be stout from 276.20-276.825 with additional resistance coming from a declining feeder cattle index. If the Bulls fail to get out above that pocket, we could see sellers’ step back in and take prices back down to trendline support and the 50-day moving average, that comes in from…..
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