USA: Cattle market review for 51 weeks from December 25, 2023

The USDA also plans to publish separate monthly reports on the feeder cattle population and frozen MEAT inventories in US cold storage warehouses. But traders are feeling nervous ahead of the report, says Dan Norcini, an independent livestock trader. "There are a lot of guys who ended up on the wrong side of the trading position after these quarterly reports," Norcini said.

On Thursday, the USDA showed weak weekly beef EXPORT sales. South Korea and Japan were among the largest buyers.

The most active February live cattle contract on the CME fell 1.625 cents to 168.675 cents a pound. The December contract ended the day higher, narrowing the spread in the cash market. The March feeder cattle contract fell 2.375 cents to 223.375 cents a pound.

The monthly feeder cattle report showed that on December 1, there were 12.006 million HEAD of cattle in feedlots with a capacity of more than 1,000 head. That's up 2.7% from last year as of Dec. 1, with traders expecting an average gain of 2.2%.

WEEKLY COST OF CUTTINGS CAT.CHOICECATTLE SALES

Sale of livestock, heads

Average weight

Week 50

Week 51

Weekly growth,%

Week 50

Week 51

Weekly growth,%

Bulls (live weight)

3,795

9 157

141.3%

1,564

1 525

-2.5%

Heifers (live weight)

1 132

3 398

200.2%

1 394

1 359

-2.5%

Steers (slaughter weight)

6,846

3,993

-41.7%

971

976

0.5%

Heifers (slaughter weight)

1 385

1 377

-0.6%

855

889

4.0%

WEEKLY WEIGHTED AVERAGE PRICE OF CALLS

BEEF PRODUCTION

Index

Week 51

Previous week

A year ago

Weekly growth,%

Growth over the year, %

Slaughter volume

621,000

649,000

552,000

-4.3%

12.5%

Live weight

1 398

1 395

1 380

0.2%

1.3%

Slaughter weight

846

844

830

0.2%

1.9%

Beef production (million pounds)

524.3

546.6

457.0

-4.1%

14.7%

CME: Live Cattle Futures

Week 50

Week 51

Weekly growth,%

December

168.23

170.05

1.1%

February

169.35

168.53

-0.5%

April

172.85

172.13

-0.4%

Feeder cattle futures

January

220.90

222.75

0.8%

March

222.18

224.40

1.0%

April

226.58

229.53

1.3%

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.