Tuesday Midday Livestock Market Summary - Live Cattle and Feeder Cattle Come to Life

GENERAL COMMENTS

It's been a changing day as the lean hog support dwindled away and the cattle contracts stepped to the plate. Both the live cattle and feeder cattle contracts are rallying, and this comes at the perfect time to hopefully ignite higher cash cattle trade. December corn is down 5 cents per bushel and December soybean meal is up $4.20. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 133.48 points and NASDAQ is up 23.36 points.

LIVE CATTLE

Live cattle are up $1.47 at $130.32, February live cattle are up $1.70 at $135.60 and April live cattle are up $1.52 at $138.25. Showlists are lighter this week, boxed beef prices are finding support, processing speeds are moving right along and the futures market is showing interest in supporting this week's rally; now, all feedlots have to do is move the cash cattle market higher. There's yet to be any interest shown in the cash cattle market, but packers could start to show interest as soon as Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday. Asking prices in the South have been noted at $128 and the North has yet to disclose their prices.

Boxed beef prices are higher: choice up $1.54 ($289.12) and select up $1.97 ($266.36) with a movement of 48 loads (23.01 loads of choice, 18.87 loads of select, zero loads of trim and 5.65 loads of ground beef).

FEEDER CATTLE

The feeder cattle market is taking full advantage of Wednesday's lower corn market and has shot anywhere from $1.00 to $2.00 higher. With the live cattle market seeing excellent fundamental support (and encouraging technical support) the feeder cattle market has been itching to trade higher along with its fellow cattle counterpart, but has held back as the corn market's recent rally demanded serious attention. November feeders are up $2.17 at $156.57, January feeder cattle are up $2.35 at $155.07 and March feeders are up $1.97 at $156.20. So long as the corn market trades lower or even steady, the feeder cattle contracts stand a good chance at keeping this rally through Wednesday's close as the live cattle market keeps growing stronger.

LEAN HOGS

To be truthful, I was surprised to see the lean hog contracts trade higher on Monday as I figured that the weekend's break would be enough time to lessen the market's excitement over Thursday's export report. The lean hog complex faces an uphill battle as supplies overbear the current market. It's highly unlikely that cash prices will rally as supplies are ample and packers don't have to compete for hogs, and it's likely that the cutout value will continue its sideways choppy trend that's tainted with a lower tone as packers desperately look for hungry buyers. December lean hogs are down $1.17 at $74.95, February lean hogs are down $1.07 at $77.70 and April lean hogs are down $0.62 at $81.75.

The projected lean hog index for Nov. 1 is down $0.12 at $79.04 and the actual index for Oct. 29 is down $0.73 at $79.16. Hog prices are lower on the National Direct Morning Hog Report, down $0.46 with a weighted average of $60.36, ranging from $60.00 to $61.50 on 5,131 head and a five-day rolling average of $61.48. Pork cutouts total 243.24 loads with 223.42 loads of pork cuts and 19.82 loads of trim. Pork cutout values: up $1.46, $93.90.