Chicago | Reuters—Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) live and feeder cattle contracts edged higher on Friday as commodity funds added to their net long positions amid near-record cash cattle prices and no signs of a herd rebuild, analysts said.
Lean hog futures also rose on stronger pork cutout values and position squaring ahead of the weekend and upcoming Christmas holiday.
CME January feeder cattle FCF25 settled up 1.125 cents to 255.600 cents per pound, settling down 0.8 per cent for the week. February live cattle LCG25 ended up 1.850 cents to 188.400 cents per pound, settling down 1.9 per cent for the week. February lean hog futures LHG25 settled up 2.300 cents to 85.925 cents per pound, up 0.4 per cent for the week.
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“Cattle is the hot one in the ag markets in terms of bullishness,” Austin Schroeder, analyst at Brugler Marketing, said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Cattle on Feed report, which was released after the market’s close, showed November cattle placements were down four per cent from the previous year but above trade estimates.
November cattle marketings were down one per cent from the previous year and slightly above the average analyst estimate.
“It was a fairly neutral report,” Schroeder said, noting that placement and marketing numbers came in roughly within expectations.
The size of the U.S. hog herd was about the same on Dec. 1 as a year earlier, a Reuters survey of analysts showed on Thursday, ahead of the USDA’s quarterly Hogs and Pigs report that will be released on Monday.
The U.S. dollar index is also hovering near a two-year peak, which makes U.S. exports less competitive.
The U.S.-Mexico border remains closed to cattle imports after the discovery of New World screwworm in southern Mexico, further restricting U.S. cattle supply and adding underlying support to futures, traders said.
USDA officials said shipments of Mexican cattle to the U.S. will likely resume in the New Year.
