Monday Midday Livestock Market Summary - Cattle Futures Hesitant to Retest Highs

GENERAL COMMENTS:

Traders appear content to let last week's highs in live cattle and feeder cattle futures remain untested on the chart yet, preferring instead to pull back inside consolidation ranges. Meanwhile, a continued slide in lean hog futures has taken the February contract, for instance, to a fresh autumn timeframe low of $64.425. December corn is up 4 cents per bushel and December soybean meal is up $1.80. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 377.33 points and NASDAQ is up 35.53 points.

LIVE CATTLE:

Bids and asking prices for cash cattle have yet to be established this week, but last week's prices -- mostly $172 dressed in the North and mostly $110 live in the South - will serve as a benchmark while the futures trade is quietly refusing to test any new territory. Optimism about coronavirus vaccines (for humans, not cows) has lent a bullish tone to the stock market and could conceivably get traders thinking about the day when Americans will go out for restaurant steaks and big gala meals in the future. The December live cattle contract is up $0.50 midway through the session at $110.425. 

Boxed beef prices are mixed: choice down $0.13 ($225.85) and select up $1.98 ($211.44) with a movement of 64 loads (26.30 loads of choice, 9.78 loads of select, 4.02 loads of trim and 24.35 loads of ground beef).

FEEDER CATTLE:

Feeder cattle contracts have been mostly lower through the first few hours of this week's futures trade with the November contract down $0.075 at $137.40, the January contract down $0.25 at $137.625, and the March contract up $0.15 at $137.30. This movement could be interpreted as just a calm contraction after the fall rally that took the November contract as high as $141.95 last week and which has kept the CME Feeder Index above $135 all through November so far. Continued small gains in corn futures Monday morning are likely also putting some pressure on feeder prices.

LEAN HOGS:

Nearby lean hog contracts through the middle of 2021 are generally posting small losses Monday morning, following through on last week's downward slide and in some cases slipping to the lowest prices seen on the chart in the past nine weeks. December is up $0.30 at $65.200, February is down $0.05 at $64.525, and April is down $0.025 at $68.00. The projected lean hog index for 11/13/2020 is down $0.76 at $70.08 and the actual index for 11/12/2020 is down $0.48 at $70.84. Hog prices are lower on the National Direct Morning Hog Report, down $0.16 with a weighted average of $59.56, ranging from $53.00 to $59.66 on 3,794 head and a 5-day rolling average of $60.30. Pork cutouts total 175.55 loads with 162.44 loads of pork cuts and 13.12 loads of trim. Pork cutout values: up $1.89, $82.03.

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