Fed Cattle Prices High Highest Level in Four Years
U.S. cash cattle prices last week surged $4 to $5 per hundredweight on a live basis and $6 to $7 dressed to their highest levels since late 2003.
11 April 2007
1 minute read
Beef packers bid aggressively for the cattle, most of which will be slaughtered this week and the beef used for grocers' features during the second half of April. Expectations of strength in demand for the middle meats, especially choice grade, to be used for grilling, helped fuel the advance in cash cattle prices.
Cattle owners were able to get more money for their cattle than some had expected at the beginning of the week, a market analyst said. The cash strength, initiated in Nebraska on Wednesday afternoon, also surprised many of the futures traders at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Thursday morning, the analyst said. The result was gap-higher openings in most live cattle contracts.
Weekly cattle slaughters in March averaged about 630,000 head, up from an average of 607,000 for the same period a year ago. However, March this year had one less weekday and one more Saturday than a year ago, and preliminary data show March cattle slaughter this year at about 31,000 head, or 1.1%, below the year-ago monthly total.
