Tuesday Midday Livestock Market Update - Support Surfaces in Contracts

General Comments

Lo and behold as the noon hour approached, support jumped back into the livestock contracts and is rallying the entire marketplace. Even though support levels are meek, and traders are cautious as pork demand has been less than ideal and boxed beef prices are scaling lower, Tuesday's midday higher trade brings some positive moral to the marketplace. March corn is down 4 1/2 cents per bushel and January soybean meal is down $4.50. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 101.22 points and NASDAQ is up 10.70 points.

LIVE CATTLE

Even with the midday boxed beef prices being sharply lower again, the live cattle market has decided to modestly rally alongside the rest of the livestock contracts. December live cattle are steady at $108.00, February live cattle are up $0.10 at $111.10 and April live cattle are up $0.05 at $115.20. Unfortunately, there's been some light trade already in Texas for $108, $2.50 lower than last week's trade. But with how few cattle traded, saying that a trend has been established for the week is a farce. If feedlots can hold out until later in the week, to give the board an opportunity to trade higher, they may be able to keep prices at lease steady with last week's levels.

Boxed beef prices are lower: choice down $3.88 ($226.92) and select down $3.06 ($206.42) with a movement of 92 loads (63.73 loads of choice, 16.78 loads of select, 5.85 loads of trim and 5.16 loads of ground beef).

FEEDER CATTLE

The feeder cattle contracts are warming up to Tuesday's trade and are trading fully higher into the afternoon. January feeders are up $0.20 at $138.00, March feeders are up $0.50 at $138.65 and April feeders are up $0.65 at $140.10. Support started to creep into the marketplace midmorning and with the corn market's $0.02 to $0.04 regression, the feeder cattle contracts wanted to be able to capitalize on the opportunity at hand. The futures market's support probably isn't robust enough to help drive feeder cattle prices in the countryside.

LEAN HOGS

The lean hog contracts are rallying alongside the live cattle and feeder cattle contracts as support has surfaced and allowed the market to rally higher. December lean hogs are up $0.12 at $64.62, February lean hogs are up $0.92 at $65.87 and April lean hogs are up $0.50 at $69.40. It would be nice and could help Wednesday's trade if the pork cutout values are able to close higher. As the hog contracts teeter around the $64.50 range, the market has been able to keep above $64.00 and hopefully will be able to maintain above that support plane the rest of the week with continued support from the futures market.

The projected lean hog index in delayed and unavailable at this time. Hog prices are lower on the National Direct Morning Hog Report, down $0.34 with a weighted average of $55.28, ranging from $48.00 to $57.00 on 5,110 head and a five-day rolling average of $55.90. Pork cutouts total 248.18 loads with 213.94 loads of pork cuts and 34.23 loads of trim. Pork cutout values: up $2.10, $80.00.