USDA released its monthly cattle on feed report today showing a total inventory of cattle and calves in feed yards of 11.9 million head on 1 November, which is slightly (25,000 head) below last year.
All categories were well aligned with the pre-report expectations - another sign that cattle markets are back in balance, except that there was a wide range of placement guesstimates, from 99 percent to 105 percent of last year. With the average guess at 102 percent, however, it’s clear there was a consensus around placements. As we’ve noted before, the pre-report estimate is based on the Olympic average (i.e., eliminating the high and the low before calculating the average) of the various analysts’ forecasts. The ave...
Key Market Insights The broad market is locked in on this week’s Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, but this is no longer just a trade summit. Increasingly, the meeting is becoming tied directly to Iran, energy security, and the growing global economic fallout from disruptions through the Strai...
