Beef Prices

Feeder cattle review: Replacements to decline this summer

Compared to last week, offerings of calves and yearling feeder cattle sold steady to 3.00 higher, with several auctions reporting calves and yearlings selling 5.00-6.00 higher. In the south feeder cattle traded mostly steady to 2.00 higher.

CattleFax Closing Bell: Feeder cattle ends higher

CattleFax analyst Lance Zimmerman reviews the week's commodity market activity and provides a forecast for the upcoming week.

Hold on tight

2012 promises to be quite a year for the U.S. beef business, with the cow-calf sector poised for record returns and incentive for growth, analysts told a standing-room crowd at the Cattle-Fax Annual Outlook Conference during the Cattle Industry Convention last week.

Cattle Outlook: March beef exports up 47 percent

Beef exports during March totaled 245.288 million pounds, up 46.5% compared to a year earlier and the second largest monthly total ever behind 259.2 million pounds exported in June 2003. Beef imports during March totaled 175.01 million pounds, down 21.0% from 12 months earlier.

Cattle Outlook: Beef exports 25.4% higher

Beef trade continues to be very favorable. Beef exports during February were 25.4% higher than 12 months earlier and beef imports were 16.5% lower. The big growth markets for beef exports were South Korea, Japan and Canada. Canada, Australia and Brazil account for the drop in beef imports.

Cattle Outlook: Frozen beef supplies largest in 2 years

The amount of beef in cold storage at the end of February, 468 million pounds, was up 1.3% from the month before and up 15.6% compared to a year earlier. Frozen beef supplies are the largest since January 2009. As a general rule, increasing stocks of frozen beef is a negative for price, but it doesn't appear to be hurting prices this year.

US cattle: Moving higher amid cash supply jitters

Live cattle futures prices Wednesday are higher amid mounting trader concerns about thin cash-market supplies and higher prices. The most-active April contract recently traded 0.95 cent a pound, or 0.84%, higher at $1.1472. The soon-to-expire February contract recently traded up 0.55 cent a pound, or 0.50%, at $1.0960.

2010 U.S. pork & beef consumption decline

U.S. per capita pork consumption fell by 2.2 pounds in 2010 to 48.0 pounds, according to the CME Daily Livestock Report. That's the lowest annual figure since 1997 when Americans consumed 47.9 pounds of pork.

Dairy Products Prices Highlights: Cheddar Cheese & Nonfat Dry Milk Prices Up

Dry Whey prices received for bag, tote, and tanker sales meeting USDA Extra Grade standards averaged 39.0 cents per pound for the week ending January 1, 2011. The US price per pound increased 0.8 cents from the previous week.

The CattleBoard: Boxed Beef Up, Cattle Slaughter Unchanged