Beef packers saw their margins jump more than $86 per head higher last week, leaving average profits at $199, according to calculations by Sterling Marketing, Vale, Ore.
After slicing more than 50% off the monstrous losses found a month ago, cattle feeders saw their margins slip $43 per further into the red last week with $2 per cwt. lower bids.
The adjectives have all been used to describe the despair that is cattle feeding. Last week was simply worse than the week before, which was a train wreck.
Another small rally in cash fed cattle markets provided another modest improvement in feeder margins, but closeouts remain $24.66 per cwt. short of break even.
Beef packer margins jumped into the black last week while cattle feeders saw their margins improve $88 per head, according to the Sterling Beef Profit Tracker.
Beef packer profit margins continued to grow last week as the beef cutout jumped nearly $5 per cwt. and cash fed cattle prices declined another $2 per cwt.
Cattle feeding margins were unchanged from the previous week, which means the train wreck continues. Despite modest gains in the cash market, cattle feeders lost an average of $206 per head, just $1 better than the previous week.
Beef cutout prices trended about $2.80 per cwt. higher to $256.37, and packer margins improved more than $26 per head, resulting in losses of $15 on every animal processed.
Beef packers put away the red ink last week as they turned modest profits on every animal processed. Feedyard margins, however, slipped a little further away from positive.