Monday Market Sentiment: Industry Leaders Predict A Decrease In Cash Cattle Prices
03/02/2010 09:34AM
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A survey of cattle-industry leaders suggests the average price for cash cattle will decrease 43 cents to 90.46 this week. The decrease in the average forecast in CatttleNetwork's Monday Market Sentiment survey marks the first time in six weeks that industry insiders have predicted a decrease in prices.
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 decreased for first time in three weeks. Last week the USDA announced that cash trade for the week ending February 28th was 90.89, an 11 percent increase from a year earlier.
Most industry leaders believe we will have larger showlists to deal this week.
Rob Cook, Director of CattleNetwork agrees with the sentiment.
"I don’t see much change this week. Cattle traded two weeks ago above $91 with boxed beef averaging under $145, which was great. Beef jumped up $5 last week and we saw a slight decrease in trade. Beef feels content in this $150 range."
Each week 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 is Mark Boos of Garden City Feedyard.