DTN Midday Livestock Comments          10/15 12:11

   Lack of Common Ground  

   In light of Monday's market strength, cattle contracts are teetering with 
little direction while the hog market wastes no time finding higher prices for 
the day. 

By ShayLe Stewart
DTN Livestock Analyst

General Comments

   Live cattle contracts struggle to find direction in whether the week should 
be higher, lower or simply steady. Feeder cattle markets are somewhat softer, 
and the hog sector continues to break into new gains. December corn is down 3 
1/4 cents per bushel and December soybean meal is down $1.60. The Dow Jones 
Industrial Average is up 251.54 points and NASDAQ is up 97.58 points. 

   LIVE CATTLE 

   One minute the live cattle market flashes various contracts growing with 
support and then the next minute whatever hope was wished upon is simply gone. 
Tuesday morning live cattle opened a tick higher $113.52 but has since gone 
down to $113.17. Monday and Tuesday markets are very much the same, if you're 
buying you know that the week is most volatile and likely to give up ground in 
the early days, where as in the later part of the week if cash prices are in 
favor of countryside sellers it's hard to count on lower prices. Tuesday's 
market is performing just like that: little to no direction, happy to go up or 
happy to go down with the slightest cue and hardly any reason behind movement.  
It's likely the market will continue to banter back and forth unless something 
significant happens throughout the day. 

   This week there are 768 head of cattle consigned to the Fed Cattle Exchange 
from Kansas, Texas and Nebraska with most pens selling for one-to-nine-day 
delivery, and one pen in Nebraska selling with the option of one-to-17-day 
delivery. 

   Midday boxed beef prices are up: choice up $0.52 ($217.74) and select up 
$1.14 ($190.47) with a light offering of boxed beef movement totaling 77 loads 
(37.32 loads of choice, 17.95 loads of select, 4.39 loads of trim and 17.67 
loads of ground beef). 

   FEEDER CATTLE 

   With little confidence in what live cattle market is doing and knowing that 
the countryside market is going to be overflowing with calves this week, the 
feeder cattle board is down anywhere from $0.32 to $0.82. November feeder 
cattle opened at $145.97 and now are trading at $145.02. On this day a year 
ago, feeder cattle were trading for $155.10. 

   LEAN HOGS 

   It almost seems as though the lean hog market knows something that the rest 
of us don't. Hog contracts have wasted no time Tuesday finding support and 
rallied off higher cutout values, aggressive movement and plenty of packer 
inquiry. All nearby and deferred contracts are claiming gains ranging from 
$0.05 to $2.65. The December lean hog contract is up $2.62 at $71.77. 

   The projected lean hog index for 10/14/19 is up $0.81 at $62.92, and the 
actual lean hog index for 10/11/19 comes to $62.11 up $0.93. Prices are up on 
the National Direct Morning Hog Report, up $0.59 with a weighted average of 
$58.75, ranging from $53.00 to $62.00 on 11,661 head sold and a five-day 
rolling average of $56.11. Pork cutouts totaled 203.89 loads with 186.60 loads 
of pork cuts and 17.30 loads of trim. Pork cutout values are up $1.29 at 
$79.23. 

   ShayLe Stewart can be reached [email protected] 


(BAS)

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