USA: Cattle market overview for the 16th week of 2023

The US National Statistics Service reported 11.612 million HEAD of cattle in more than 1,000 feedlots as of April 1. This is 4.39% less than on April 22, compared with an expected fall of 5%. The ratio of heifers was 38.7%. This compares to a ratio of 37.7% in April 2022. The March placement amounted to 1.992 million heads, which is 0.65% less than last year, and much less than expected - by 5.2%. Sales were recorded at 1.977 million heads, down 1.15% year on year.

Experts say the drought played a role in the rise in livestock prices, but some point out that this is somewhat illogical: the drought was in the southern plains of the United States, and there are no pastures for animals. Cattle were herded to feedlots. One would think that this would actually increase the number of fattening cattle, but as we see month after month in the USDA Cattle on Feed Reports, this is simply not the case.

WEEKLY CUT CHOICE COST

CATTLE SALES

Sale of livestock, heads

Average weight

Week 15

Week 16

Growth per week,%

Week 15

Week 16

Growth per week,%

Bulls (live weight)

28 129

24 883

-11.5%

1448

1443

-0.3%

Heifers (live weight)

15 322

10 988

-28.3%

1315

1 321

0.5%

Bulls (slaughter. weight)

15 418

9 801

-36.4%

922

922

0.0%

Heifers (slaughter weight)

4679

3 300

-29.5%

803

795

-1.0%

WEEKLY WEIGHTED AVERAGE PRICE OF BULLS

BEEF PRODUCTION

Index

Week 16

Week 15

16 week 2022

Growth per week,%

Growth per year, %

Slaughter volume

622 000

613 000

664 000

1.5%

-6.3%

Live weight

1 365

1 367

1 376

-0.1%

-0.8%

slaughter weight

821

822

831

-0.1%

-1.2%

Beef production (million pounds)

509.7

502.8

550.6

1.4%

-7.4%

CME: Live Cattle Futures

Week 15

Week 16

Growth per week,%

April

174.75

173.98

-0.4%

June

163.73

164.53

0.5%

August

162.70

163.55

0.5%

Futures for fattening cattle

April

203.40

203.78

0.2%

May

207.90

212.40

2.2%

September

223.95

229.88

2.6%

You can learn more about the state of the cattle market in the United States (cattle prices, beef prices by category, production dynamics) in the weekly reviews of the MEAT market in RUSSIA and in the world from Meatinfo.ru. Weekly reviews are available free of charge as part of a monthly meat analytics subscription. Russian markets.