DTN Closing Livestock Comment 03/11 15:55

DTN Closing Livestock Comment 03/11 15:55 Cattle Futures Pop to New 4-Month Highs The cattle complex finished the week with significant price progress, supported by aggressive short-covering, technical buying, and improving fundamentals. Lean hog contracts settled on a mixed basis with deferreds gaining on nearbys. By John Harrington DTN Livestock Analyst GENERAL COMMENTS: From Friday to Friday livestock futures scored the following Changes: Apr LC, Up $3.45; Jun LC, Up $2.08; Mar FC, Up $3.90; May FC, Up $4.93, Apr LH, Up $1.02 May LH, Up $1.93. Cattle buying turned moderate to fairly active in parts of the North with most dressed deals marked at $220, $6 to $7 higher than last week's weighted averages. A few live transactions in Nebraska and Iowa were marked at $138 to $140, $2 to $4 higher. However, cash trading in the South remains slow in developing with feedlot managers resisting bids of $136, holding for higher asking prices around $140 or better. We expect to see some volume develop either later this afternoon or early tomorrow. According to the closing report, the Iowa hog base is $1.57 lower compared with the Prior Day settlement ($55.00-$64.50, weighted average $63.56). The corn market closed higher, up 2 1/4 cents in the May and up 1 3/4 cents in the December.