GENERAL COMMENTS:
Cattle buyers and sellers continue to take their
own sweet time deciding on the appropriate value of ready steers and
heifers. It's late Friday and there's still a wide gulf between many
bids ($112 to $183) and asking prices ($119 to $120 to $187-plus). A few
pens in the North have been marked at $116 on a live basis.
Furthermore, some Southern bids have improved to $117. At this sluggish
rate, a good assessment of country movement may not be available until
Monday morning. According to the closing report, the national hog base
is $0.50 higher compared with the prior day settlement ($45.00 to
$50.74, weighted average $50.03). Nearby corn closed up 4 1/2 cents,
partially supported on the final day of November by news that only two
delivery intentions were announced for December, a hopeful sign that the
market is not eager to let go of corn at these prices. From Friday to
Friday, livestock futures scored the following changes: Dec LC, off
$0.18; Feb LC, off $0.42; Jan FC, off $4.15; Mar FC, off $3.07; Dec LH,
off $1.20; Feb LH, off $0.27. Cheered by potential U.S./China trade
talk, the stock market closed the month with another bullish punch: the
Dow settled 199 points higher and the Nasdaq finished 57 in the green.
LIVE CATTLE:
Prices here settled mixed, up $0.32 to off
$0.17, with nearbys outperforming some deferreds. Most live issues
traded lower through midday before recovering some of those losses in
the final minutes of the session, with some possibly sensing that
short-bought packers would eventually have to reach deeper in their
wallets. Beef cut-outs closed mixed with the choice unchanged ($212.61)
and select off $0.12 ($198.41). Box demand was called moderate demand
and offering.
MONDAY'S CASH CATTLE CALL:
Steady. Early biz on Monday will be limited to
the distribution of new showlists. The initial December offering could
be some larger depending on how late, late business this week shapes up
to be.
FEEDER CATTLE:
Feeder contracts finished the month off $0.70 to
$0.82, The front-end seemed to attract bear spreaders with January
through April attracting most of the selling pressure. The impressive
rally in the corn market was clearly a negative factor. CME cash feeder
Index for 11/29: $147.13, down $0.34.
LEAN HOGS:
Lean hog issues closed the week and month with
mixed prices, up $0.45 to off $0.85. Consistent trends were difficult to
identify. Spot December seemed particularly pressured by the discount
of the cash index. Carcass values advanced moderately higher, boosted by
bellies, picnics and ham. The cut-out totaled $69.12, up $0.68. (DTN
Projected lean index for CME cash lean index for 11/29: $56.42, off
$0.14) CME cash lean index for 11/28: $56.56, off $0.28.
MONDAY'S CASH HOG CALL:
Steady/firm. Look for pork processors to resume the collection of market hogs on Monday with steady/firm bids.
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