DTN Midday Livestock Comments 10/14 11:59

DTN Midday Livestock Comments 10/14 11:59 Cattle Futures Slide Lower Wednesday Morning Cattle futures have quickly backed away from strong gains seen during early trade. The lack of support through the live cattle complex focus on light activity in the market, but should not take away from the momentum seen in positive boxed beef valued on the morning report. By Rick Kment DTN Analyst GENERAL COMMENTS: Early support, which flooded into cattle futures Wednesday morning, quickly back peddled through most of the morning. This left all but front-month October live cattle and feeder cattle future lower at midday due to lack of buyer support and slowing volume. Late-day volume may help to spark additional buying interest into market settlements. Corn prices are lower in light trade. December corn futures are 4 cents per bushel lower. Stock markets are lower in light trade. The Dow Jones is 91 points lower while Nasdaq is down 2 points. LIVE CATTLE: Strong early buyer support flooded into live cattle futures trade as traders focused on firming boxed beef values and the potential for additional higher cash cattle trade at the end of the week. But buyer support quickly ran out of gas at midday with all but lightly traded October futures turning moderately lower at midday. Even though most contracts have kept losses in check so far, the lack of buyer support in the complex creates some underlying concern about just how much upward momentum may be left in the live cattle market before another correction may be seen. Cash cattle activity is limited to a few preliminary bids in the south at $125 per cwt. These bids are a well below asking prices of $135 and unlikely to get much attention at this point, but intended to get the ball rolling ahead of what is expected to be end-of-week trade activity. It is expected that packers are once again short bought and likely needing to get a healthy dose of cattle in their possession for next week's procurement. Asking prices and bids in the North have been very quiet so far through the week, leading up to an end-of-week showdown. Beef cut-outs at midday are higher, $2.01 higher (select) and up $2.35 per cwt (choice) with active movement of 102 total loads reported (31 loads of choice cuts, 19 loads of select cuts, 21 loads of trimmings, 31 loads of ground beef). FEEDER CATTLE: Early triple-digit support seen in feeder cattle futures has quickly eroded through morning trade as buyer support was unable to draw additional volume back into the complex. The market has moved from a strong market gain early in the session to triple-digit losses at midday, creating concerns of follow through pressure at the end of the week. October futures are hanging onto slim gains, although most of trade has moves to the November contract, which is 52 cents per cwt lower at midday and eroding quickly as the session continues. LEAN HOGS: Softness in cash hog values and lack of pork price support in the morning report has created some uncertainty through lean hog futures trade which has moved from unevenly mixed early in the trading session to mostly lower at midday. All but front-month October lean hog contracts are now trading lower with many of these nearby and deferred contracts holding moderate to strong losses based on weak trader interest. The lack of renewed buyer support midweek does not indicate an aggressive sharp turn in the market is developing, but it does cause some to wonder if summer 2016 contracts will be able to move past he $80 per cwt level over the near future. Cash prices are lower on the National Direct morning cash hog report. The weighted average price fell $1.39 per cwt to $70.04 per cwt with the range from $63.00 to $72.50 per cwt on 3,719 head reported sold. Cash prices are lower on the Iowa Minnesota Direct morning cash hog report. The weighted average price fell $1.48 per cwt to $71.08 per cwt with the range from $70.00 to $72.50 per cwt on 1,145 head reported sold. The National Pork Plant Report reported 237 loads selling with prices up $0.47 per cwt. Lean hog index for 10/12 is at $74.85 up 0.08, with a projected two-day index of $74.94, up 0.09. Rick Kment can be reached at rick.kment@dtn.com (BAS) Copyright 2015 DTN/The Progressive Farmer. All rights reserved.