Feeder Cattle Mark New Contract Highs. Are Live Cattle Next?
Cattle futures have had a strong rally over the last two weeks with feeder cattle futures scoring new contract highs. Live cattle are threatening technical resistance with their contract highs in the crosshairs.
Live Cattle (April) April live cattle futures managed to work higher in yesterday’s trade, closing in the middle of our resistance pocket from 200.80-201.975. The market attempted to clear this hurdle and did intraday, but did not have quite enough gas to close above it, keeping it intact for today’s trade. If the Bulls can achieve consecutive closes above this pocket, renewed technical strength could open the door for a retest of the contract highs, 207.725.
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Daily Cattle and Beef Summary Cutout values were mixed on Wednesday afternoon with choice cuts .10 lower to 321.10 and select cuts .67 higher to 307.53. Wednesday’s slaughter was reported at 123k head.
The CME feeder Cattle Index is at 278.71 with the NBW Real-Time Index showing 282.86 as of this morning.
Weekly Export Sales Summary: Net sales of 14,300 MT for 2025 were up 7 percent from the previous week, but down 13 percent from the prior 4-week average. Increases were primarily for Japan (4,600 MT, including decreases of 300 MT), South Korea (3,000 MT, including decreases of 600 MT), China (2,500 MT, including decreases of 900 MT), Mexico (1,000 MT, including decreases of 100 MT), and Taiwan (800 MT, including decreases of 100 MT). Exports of 15,900 MT were up 21 percent from the previous week and 12 percent from the prior 4-week average. The destinations were primarily to South Korea (4,400 MT), Japan (4,400 MT), China (2,500 MT), Mexico (1,700 MT), and Taiwan (900 MT). |
Seasonal Tendency Update
(updated 3.10.25)
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 110,468 futures and options contracts, this was the fifth straight week of net selling. Keep in mind this data is only through Tuesday, so it doesn’t include the massive run higher in the back half of the week.
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