GENERAL COMMENTS: Cattle market watchers learned little Wednesday about mid-month price potentials. Country bids were few and far between. Some asking prices clearly reflected seller optimism: $120 to $121 in the South; $190 plus in the North. According to the closing report, the national hog base is $0.27 lower compared with the prior day settlement ($42 to $47.21, weighted average $46.33). March corn ended up a half-cent at $3.85 1/4 Wednesday, inching higher in spite of USDA's small increase in its estimate of U.S. ending corn stocks on Tuesday. The stock market closed higher with the Dow recovering 157 points and the Nasdaq better by 66.
LIVE CATTLE: Live issues moved $0.17 to $0.75 higher through the session, supported by cash premiums and solid processing margins. Positively, the midweek board was boosted by the recent record of late week packer spending. Some are willing to bet that well-margined processors will stay close to asking prices over the next few days. Beef cut-outs closed mixed with the choice off $2.21 ($212.25) and select up $0.18 ($201.57). Box demand was called light to moderate demand and moderate to heavy offering.
THURSDAY'S CASH CATTLE CALL: Steady to $2 higher. Buying interest could start to improve on Thursday, but feedlot producers have developed quite the successful strategy in stay late in the trading week.
FEEDER CATTLE: Feeder contracts advanced by $0.27 to $0.42 higher, helped by follow-through buying and building feedlot equity. Needless to say, the cash feeder market is poorly tested as we head into the late year fortnight of holidays. CME cash feeder Index for 12/10: $144.96 up $0.90.
LEAN HOGS: Hog futures also moved moderately higher Wednesday, settling up $0.20 to $0.50 with first quarter contracts gaining on both nearbys and deferreds. Carcass value came back under pressure at midweek, curbed by softer demand for fresh cuts and hams. New spot Feb has quite the head start on December cash and it will be interesting to see how patient the new year is in waiting for the country trade to fire over the next 30 days or so. The cut-out totaled $72.44, off $0.89. (DTN Projected lean index for CME cash lean index for 12/11: $55.65, off $0.44) CME cash lean index for 12/10: $55.98, off $0.14.
THURSDAY'S CASH HOG CALL: Steady to $1 lower. Look for opening bids in the cash hog trade to be somewhat defensive thanks to another round of large offering and struggling carcass value.
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