No Magic Bullet to Save Cattle Market
It’s going to take time
It’s been a stressful time for cattle producers trying to keep their heads above water in the last several month’s volatile market conditions.
Recently, Ag Day Anchor Clinton Griffiths sat down with Chip Nellinger, a risk management consultant and futures market specialist for Blue Reef Agri-Marketing, Inc, coming off the last week of September when live cattle futures dipped below a dollar.
The big question: Where are cattle producers at in the markets?
“It’s been a rough several months in cattle,” Nellinger says, with new contract lows being set. “It’s been a long time since we’ve been under $100 live cattle.”
According to him, packers hold the upper hand right now with the ability to buy cash cattle at steady to lower prices almost every week.
“It’s been kind of a blood bath for lack of a better term,” he says. “There’s been a lot of equity given back the last six months here. So there’s a real problem out there. We need to see cash cattle stabilize.”
However, he is hopeful the market will begin to fix itself once producers make it through fall, but cautions there is no “magic bullet” and it is going to take time to correct.
I think as we get past fall that starts to fix itself. Not immediately. But the problem is that it’s been kind of a blood bath for a lack of a better term.
“I guess the one take-home, the one bright spot is that feeder cattle prices have dropped a little bit quicker than fed cattle prices. That’s been something that has been needing to get back in line and it has more room to go,” he adds.
