Cattle Futures: November and December Contracts Close Higher, Thursday
US - Live cattle closed 22 cents higher at 132.976, helped early on by feeder cattle trades.
15 November 2013
1 minute read
December cattle closed 22 higher after choppy trade and the close was down 42 from the daily peak, write CME analysts.
Ideas that retailers will soon shift to booking beef for December and ideas that tightening supply will support higher cash cattle into December has helped to support the market.
Strength in feeder cattle helped to support early but the sharp break in hogs helped to pull the market back into the mid-session.
Boxed-beef cut-out values at mid-session came in at $204.27 which is up $1.26 from yesterday and down from $204.56 last week.
Slaughter came in well below trade expectations at 115,000 head which can sometimes suggest that packer demand for live inventory is weak.
Weekly meat production report carried a bit of a bearish tilt as steer weights (week ending November 2nd) pushed above last years weight for the first time in seven weeks.
Beef production was 498.5 million pounds which was higher than the previous week but still down 2.5 per cent from last year.
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