CME: December Cattle Closed Moderately Higher
US - December cattle closed moderately higher on the day with an inside trading session.The market was trading higher on the session into the mid-day as traders believe the break late Friday was overdone.
Cash cattle was at a record high $132.00 last week but traders believe that beef prices will need to move significantly higher over the near-term just to rationalize the high cash market from last week.
Packers are expected to cut-back on slaughter this week which could boost beef prices and help pull margins out of the red.
Choice boxed-beef cut-out values at mid-session came in at $203.41, up $2.44 from Friday and up from $198.29 last week.
Slaughter came in well above trade expectations at 122,000 head. For the monthly update, beef exports for August came in at 239.5 million pounds which was down from 264.6 million in July but up from 225.2 million last year.
TheCattleSite News Desk