US: Cattle Market Review Week 9, March 3, 2025

Friday was a risk-free trading day, with sell-offs across all commodity markets, according to independent trader Dan Norcini.

Trump said in a social media post Thursday that new tariffs on imports from Mexico and CANADA, as well as additional duties on Chinese goods, would go into effect March 4, contradicting his comments Wednesday that they might be delayed until April.

Market participants are concerned about the possibility of retaliatory measures against US farm exports from affected countries, with analysts saying the tariffs are likely to fuel US inflation .

Investor fears that beef demand will falter as consumers face cash shortages have sent cattle futures soaring .

This week , federally inspected cattle slaughter was estimated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture at 566,000 HEAD. That's down 3,000 head from the previous week, but still down 28,236 head from the same week last year.

WEEKLY COST OF CUT OUT CAT.CHOICE

CATTLE SALES

Sale of cattle, heads

Average weight

Week 8

Week 9

Growth per week,%

Week 8

Week 9

Growth per week,%

Bulls (live weight)

11 840

808

-93.2%

1,480

1,528

3.2%

Heifers (live weight)

4 975

1 541

-69.0%

1 389

1 391

0.1%

Bulls (slaughter weight)

3 270

3 228

-1.3%

961

993

3.3%

Heifers (slaughter weight)

908

1 138

25.3%

874

889

1.7%

WEEKLY WEIGHTED AVERAGE BULL PRICE

BEEF PRODUCTION                                                                     

Indicator

Week 9

Previous week

A year ago

Growth per week,%

Growth per year, %

Volume of cattle slaughter

566,000

569,000

594,000

-0.5%

-4.7%

Live weight

1,440

1,437

1 391

0.2%

3.5%

Slaughter weight

876

874

840

0.2%

4.3%

Beef Production (million pounds)

494.4

496.3

498.4

-0.4%

-0.8%

CME: Live Cattle Futures

Week 8

Week 9

Growth per week,%

February

197.83

197.73

-0.1%

April

193.95

192.65

-0.7%

June

190.33

188.78

-0.8%

CME: Feeder Cattle Futures

March

267.95

274.98

2.6%

April

267.55

273,00

2.0%

May

265.93

271.13

2.0%

You can learn more about the state of the cattle market in the usa ( cattle prices , 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 as part of a subscription.