Cattle Futures: December Cattle Plummets, Monday
US - Monday saw major losses with December live cattle closing at $131.90, down $1.50.This was as long liquidation selling emerged after the market pushed under Friday's lows, say CME analysts.
This sparked a steady flow of long liquidation selling. There was some talk that last week's sales volume was slow enough that there will be more cattle available for the cash market trade this week.
Long liquidation was noted early in the day as some traders see the weak tone in beef prices over the past week as a sign that cash cattle will struggle to add to last week's $132.00 trade.
The weekend COT report showed trend-following funds were net long 86,336 contracts as of November 12th. The premium of futures to the cash and weight concerns due to cheap corn added to the negative tone.
Choice boxed-beef cut-out values at mid-session came in at $200.98 which is down $.18 from Friday and down from $202.79 last week.
Select beef was up $1.32. Slaughter came in well above trade expectations at 119,000 head. Beef production last week reached 480.3 million pounds which was down 3.4 per cent from last year due to higher weights.
TheCattleSite News Desk