Weighing the Market

Cattle markets continue searching for a practical bottom to the sharp early-summer correction as cattle prices trended lower from the middle of July through the middle of August. Besides seasonal pressure and sluggish wholesale beef values, a variety of news and uncertainty continue to roil confidence. Toward the end of ...

Supply and demand fundamentals fueling the cattle market’s lengthy bull run remain largely unchanged, but prices took a decidedly negative turn heading into July.  Wholesale beef values never sparked as much as seasonally expected with Choice the cutout price reaching a recent peak of $400.31/cwt. June 23 and then declining ...

Fundamental cattle market strength continues Volatility continues to roil cattle markets, pushed and shoved during the last month by a wide range of factors. Examples include packing plant strikes — both real and rumored — the Department of Justice investigation into beef packers, the ongoing White House rhetoric about the ...

Cattle prices maintains Strength Negotiated cash fed cattle prices reached historic highs the first week of May at $255-$260/cwt. (FOB live) and $400-$403 (dressed delivered), amid tighter supplies and with packers seeking inventory on the cusp or grilling season.  The CME Feeder Cattle Index continued historically high, ranging from $369.32 ...

Cattle markets continue to underscore their fundamental strength with cattle prices holding their ground or gaining in the face of multiple shocks, including significantly higher crude oil prices and uncertainty stemming from the U.S. War with Iran, the strike at the JBS packing plant in Greeley, Colorado and lingering wonderment ...

Fundamental supply and demand strength continues for cattle and beef markets, albeit with outside forces pressuring prices in recent weeks. Much of it is tied to volatile Cattle futures shoved around by uncertainty about the strike at the JBS packing plant in Greeley, Colorado and concerns about the wider potential ...

Cattle and beef prices began the new year with significant recovery from the late-2025 plunge, which was tied to a variety of factors including Tyson shuttering some of its packing capacity to on-again, off-again tariffs, rumors of the U.S. resuming feeder cattle imports from Mexico and all sorts of political ...

Political risk overshadows fundamentals Left to their own devices, bullish supply and demand fundamentals continue for beef markets. Unfortunately, the federal government continues inserting itself into the marketplace, in the name of lowering consumer retail beef prices.  “What is clear is that uncertainty and volatility from political comments and rhetoric ...

Increasing market uncertainty and volatility, tied mostly to threats and rumors of government intervention, broke cattle prices' steady climb higher in October. All of them relate to U.S. President Donald Trump’s chatter about the need to lower domestic consumer beef prices, capped so far by this Truth Social post attributed ...

Cattle prices experienced expected seasonal weakness in August and September, as a wider variety of spring-born calves began coming to town and consumers moved beyond the last official grilling day of the summer. But prices remain historically high for all classes, in response to dwindling cattle numbers and continued robust ...