As contracts near the noon hour the entire livestock complex trades lower without a whole lot energy circulating throughout the market. Traders seem leery of jumping into a marketplace without a sure consensus of where prices are headed and find it safer to sit out until a clear direction is established. May corn is down 5 cents per bushel and May soybean meal is up $1.40. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 478.65 points and NASDAQ is up 208.09 points.
LIVE CATTLE
Live cattle contracts have stuck with the rest of the complex and have traded mostly uneventfully Monday morning. Live cattle contracts flirted with the idea of trading higher midmorning but quickly dropped back to lower levels and continue to trade there heading into the noon hour. April live cattle are down $1.10 at $99.85, June live cattle are down $1.15 at $88.27 and August live cattle are down $1.22 at $89.22. Cash cattle trade has yet to develop with both feeders and packers very quiet Monday morning. New showlists appear to be mixed, higher in Texas, but lower in Kansas and Nebraska/Colorado.
Boxed beef cutouts are lower: choice down $1.71 ($251.13) and select down $3.86 ($238.52) with a movement of 113 loads (68.75 loads of choice, 11.12 loads of select, 26.52 loads of trim and 6.61 loads of ground beef).
FEEDER CATTLE
Feeder cattle contracts started the day out lower, contemplated trading higher with the live cattle contracts but then quickly sank lower as pressure grew. April live cattle are down $1.70 at $118.90, May feeders are down $1.42 at $119.50 and August feeders are down $1.60 at $125.50. Sale barns try to navigate through these times like everyone else; trying to balance the worry of if will the week be lower, or will producers trudge through and market their calves regardless?
LEAN HOGS
The lean hog market is taking the biggest hit to Monday's arrival as contracts fall $1.10 to $3.65 lower. April lean hogs are down $3.22 at $5.20, June lean hogs are down $4.10 at $60.20 and July lean hogs are down $3.00 at $63.77. Given the number of hogs that sold Monday morning, it's disappointing that the cash market was able to at least maintain steady prices if not gain a little ground with demand being as lofty as it is.
The projected lean hog index for 3/27/2020 is down $0.93 at $65.53, and the actual for 3/26/2020 is up $0.29 at $66.46. Hog prices are lower on the National Direct Morning Hog Report, down $0.13 with a weighted average of $58.71 ranging from $52.00 to $62.50 on 11.226 head sold and a five-day rolling average of $58.41. Pork cutouts total 244.70 loads with 222.37 loads of pork cuts and 22.33 loads of trim. Pork cutout values: down $1.46, $72.33.
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