USA: Cattle market review for week 49 from December 11, 2023

According to the WASDE report, WAOB left 2023 beef production at 26.932 billion pounds, but increased its forecast for 2024 production to 25.99 billion pounds. This was due to an increase of £60 million in the first quarter, +45 million in the second quarter and +75 million in the third quarter.

Friday afternoon's beef report showed Choice was $288.01, down $1.83, and Select was $257.90, down 93 cents per cwt. The USDA's weekly report showed beef production for the week at 532.5 million pounds, up 0.5% from last week but down 1.8% year over year. Cattle slaughter amounted to 635 thousand heads, which corresponds to last week’s figures, but is 2% lower than the same week last year.  

WEEKLY COST OF CUTTINGS CAT.CHOICE

CATTLE SALES

Sale of livestock, heads

Average weight

Week 48

Week 49

Weekly growth,%

Week 48

Week 49

Weekly growth,%

Bulls (live weight)

24 732

19 380

-21.6%

1 480

1 487

0.5%

Heifers (live weight)

9 172

10 407

13.5%

1 341

1 336

-0.4%

Steers (slaughter weight)

5 980

12 304

105.8%

972

998

2.7%

Heifers (slaughter weight)

2 637

1 434

-45.6%

851

849

-0.2%

WEEKLY WEIGHTED AVERAGE PRICE OF CALLS

BEEF PRODUCTION

Index

Week 49

Previous week

A year ago

Weekly growth,%

Growth over the year, %

Slaughter volume

635,000

635,000

648,000

0.0%

-2.0%

Live weight

1 390

1 385

1 395

0.4%

-0.4%

Slaughter weight

840

836

838

0.5%

0.2%

Beef production (million pounds)

532.5

529.7

542.3

0.5%

-1.8%

CME: Live Cattle Futures

Week 48

Week 49

Weekly growth,%

December

169.28

165.45

-2.3%

February

169.13

165.73

-2.0%

April

171.63

169.30

-1.4%

Feeder cattle futures

January

214.43

215.30

0.4%

March

217.23

216.08

-0.5%

April

221.18

219.20

-0.9%

You can find out more about the state of the cattle market in the usa ( livestock prices , the cost of beef 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 for free as part of a subscription to monthly meat analytics Russian markets.