Mackey: Cowboys Stick to Asks, Trading Limited
All eyes in cattle country will be on Monday’s USDA Price Report for last week's negotiated cash numbers. As of Friday, the industry traded just 30,000 head cash and grids combined or about 80,000 head fewer than the same time period a week ago.
Struggling with extremely high heat with indexes of more than 116 degrees— cattle feeders found themselves focusing their time on the betterment of the cattle than the market. Early reports of death loss seem incredulously high. Couple that with the performance loss, this past week could rival some of our worst winter storm losses.
As cattle feeders battled the extremely high heat, packers looked to work the market lower and leverage their pickups. They would offer lower bids to get cattle out sooner rather than later. South saw bids of $178-179 cwt. Steady to $1 higher, but most would stick to their $180 asks. As we’ve seen in previous weeks—the cattle that would entertain the bid, most of them would be shipped North. Meanwhile, the North saw very minimal trade at $292-294 cwt dressed and $186 cwt live.
Looking ahead, packers will keep the harvest pace throttled back. They will try to manage their needs with their captives at their disposal and keep prices in check. Cattle feeders will assess the performance damage and look to keep prices elevated.
