The cash cattle market could start to take on greater potential this morning, at least in terms of more specific bids and asking prices. Asking prices are around $125 on a live basis and $196-198 dressed, barring the development of significant better basis opportunities, the development of trade volume may not surface until Thursday and Friday. CME officials announced late Tuesday that 10 loads were retendered for delivered against April live cattle for $1, all at Dodge City. All 10 loads were demanded. Live and feeder futures should open on a mixed basis thanks to a combo of spillover selling and pre cash short covering.
Look for the cash hog trade to open with bids steady to $1 higher. The country trade continues to appreciate, albeit at a slower pace. Yet the board remain quite servous about the ability of cash prices to evenly justify board premiums. Lean futures are also geared to open with uneven prices tied to residual selling and profit taking.
| BULL SIDE | BEAR SIDE | ||
| 1) | Spot boxed beef spending is definitely on a roll at long last, especially relative to choice product. The choice cut-out jumped another $2.54 on Tuesday, closing at its highest level since April 4. Box demand in general was described as "good." | 1) | After posting early gains Tuesday, live cattle futures contracts ended the session mixed to mostly lower. The short-term trend has shifted from neutral to higher, while the longer-term trend line in the continuous chart continues to be negative. |
| 2) | Furthermore, out-front beef sales are exploding. Last week saw box sales with delivery of 22 days or more surging to 1,537 loads, the largest weekly total with such specs since late May 2012. | 2) | Weekly cattle slaughter totals are expected to accelerate into the range of 630,000 to 640,000 heads into mid-May, before breaking into and sustaining the lower to middle 640,000-head area. |
| 3) | Even though hog buyers firmed bids somewhat yesterday, country receipts on Tuesday remained relatively slow. More aggressive bidding in the days ahead will probaby be necessary to fund even reduced slaugter plans. | 3) | Supply worries may be breaking down the technical support and promise of summer lean hog futures. July and August closed below 40-moving averages on Tuesday. |
| 4) | Although pork processing margins have narrowed since midmonth, they still remain decent with signs of improving wholesale prices waiting in the wing. But the Saturday hog kill may be no larger than 53,000 head possibly a good sign that ready numbers of barrows and gilts are getting tighter. | 4) | Some trade sources fear Japan-European Union trade agreement is threatening U.S. pork exports to Japan. The U.S. may be losing market share since abandoning the Trans Pacific Partnership deal. |
CATTLE: (News OK) -- Agricultural officials on Monday estimated the Rhea and 34 Complex wildfires burning in Dewey and Woodward counties have killed about 1,100 head of cattle so far.
Jim Reese, Oklahoma's secretary of agriculture, said Monday that's fewer cattle than Oklahoma ranchers lost in a series of wildfires in six western and Panhandle counties just more than a year ago, although he added he expects more ranchers are being hurt by this year's fires.
As for the estimated cattle losses so far this year, Reese said it could be worse.
He said there was a greater availability of cultivated wheat pastures in areas near this year's fires that ranchers could use as temporary sanctuaries for their animals, compared to a year ago.
Last year's wildfires burned 318,025 acres across parts of Beaver, Ellis, Harper, Roger Mills, Woodward and Woods counties, according to information recently released by Oklahoma's Forestry Services division. Oklahoma ranchers reportedly lost about 3,000 head of cattle to those fires.
While state agricultural statistics data shows there were more than a half million acres of wheat planted in those six counties, those acres were planted across a much larger area.
This year's fires, in contrast, so far have consumed about 350,000 acres primarily in Woodward and Dewey counties. Data shows 87,000 acres of wheat was harvested from Woodward County in 2016, and that 112,000 acres of the crop was grown in Dewey County in 2017.
HOGS: (AP) --- Jurors in North Carolina are getting a round-up of testimony in a lawsuit filed by more than 500 neighbors of an industrial-scale swine operation.
The plaintiffs contend that open-air cesspools inflict them with intense, putrid smells that can't be removed from clothing or household fabrics for years.
Lawyers for Virginia-based Smithfield Foods maintain that the smells, traffic and noise don't hurt the neighbors' ability to enjoy their own property.
The jury has heard three weeks of testimony. This is the first of a series of test cases against the low-cost, high-volume methods of hog-production division used by the Chinese-owned company.
Lawyers for the neighbors say alternative methods don't cause such a nuisance, but the company uses open-air cesspools because they're cheap.
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