Monday Market Sentiment: Industry leaders expect cash cattle prices to decrease

A survey of cattle-industry leaders suggests the average price for cash cattle will decrease $1.24 to $116.69 per cwt this week.

The Monday Market Sentiment is a forecast of the upcoming weekly cash trade (5-Area weighted average price) prices reported by the USDA. This week prices increased for the sixth consecutive week and climbed to a new all-time high.  Last week the USDA announced that cash trade for the week ending March 13th was 117.93, a 26 percent increase from a year earlier.

Among the reasons cited for the predictions were the drop in live cattle futures due to the uncertainty of the markets onto the impact of the disaster in Japan.

Each week Drovers CattleNetwork awards a $100 gift certificate from Cabela's courtesy of Intervet/Schering Plough to the industry leader whose forecast comes closest to the 5-Area cash trade number reported by the USDA. The most recent winner was Mark Engler of Cactus Feeders.

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