The market keeps looking and trying to find the pivotal indicator that will help encourage prices in all divisions but is having little luck as the week progresses on. April live cattle are down $1.23 at $119.425, March feeder cattle are down $1.45 at $136.05, April lean hogs are down $0.43 at $61.9, March corn is down 2 1/4 cents per bushel and March soybean meal is down $0.50. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 354.64 points and NASDAQ is up 32.15 points.
LIVE CATTLE
Cattle contracts are weakening as the day progresses, still unsure where the overall market's attitude lies. Seeing trade wait until later in the week (as of now at least) seems to be a good sign for cash prices and boxed beef values are higher as well. February live cattle are down $0.50 at $121.12, April live cattle are down $1.17 at $119.47 and June live cattle are down $0.87 at $110.87. Nearby contracts are taking the downward fall of Wednesday harder than deferred.
The countryside still remains pretty quiet with little action taking place as of noon. In Nebraska there are some bids on cattle at $120, but other than that packers have been relatively quiet thus far. Asking prices of $124 have been set in the South, and cattle in the North are priced at $189 to $200. Earlier Wednesday morning there was 627 head of cattle consigned to the Fed Cattle Exchange with one lot in Texas, Nebraska and Kansas each. Asking prices were at $122, but the market lacked to muster up any interest. The last couple of weeks have been strange in the essence that cattle have traded early in the week with the bulk of the trade developing sometime Wednesday, and then cleaning up business on Thursday and Friday. It doesn't seem like the unusual early trade will strike again this week as the country remains quiet and neither party seem overly anxious.
Boxed beef prices are higher: choice up $0.51 ($211.44) and select is up $1.11 ($208.62) with a movement of 74 loads (37.95 loads of choice, 13.98 loads of select, 0 loads of trim and 21.90 loads of ground beef).
FEEDER CATTLE
The feeder cattle contracts bleed lower at the noon hour as all contracts are trading with at least $1.00 losses expected the furthest deferred month. Seeing little direction from the live cattle market, and not knowing the where and when cash cattle trade will develop makes it hard to the feeder cattle contracts to bolster up strength. March feeders are down $1.45 at $135.05, April feeders are down $1.35 at $137.57 and May feeders are down $1.37 at $139.92.
LEAN HOGS
Lean hog contracts are tipping the scales and are sliding back into lower prices as Wednesday progresses. February lean hogs are up $0.42 at $57.17, April lean hogs are down $0.52 at $61.80 and May lean hogs are down $0.57 at $70.32. But seeing that cash prices have broken lower, hopefulness for the afternoon may be slim.
The projected lean hog index for 2/04/2020 is down $0.12 at $60.98 and the actual for 2/03/2020 is down $0.31 at $61.10. Hog prices are lower on the National Direct Morning Hog Report, down $1.72 with a weighted average of $51.42, ranging from $46.00 to $54.23 on 5,320 head sold and five-day rolling average of $53.17. Pork cutouts total 160.55 loads with 131.82 loads of pork cuts and 28.73 loads of trim. Pork cutout values: up $0.25, $68.38.
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