DTN Early Word Opening Livestock 04/25 06:15

DTN Early Word Opening Livestock 04/25 06:15 Meat Futures Likely to Open Week With Mixed Prices The cattle complex seems staged to open cautiously mixed with a slow combination of follow-through selling and early week short-covering. Hog futures are also likely to see uneven price action in the early rounds as traders assess the prospects of late-month fundamentals. By John Harrington DTN Livestock Analyst Cattle: Cash Steady-$2 LR Futures Mixed Live Equiv $147.86 - .64* Hogs: Cash Steady-$1 HR Futures Mixed Lean Equiv $84.64 - $1.08** * based on formula estimating live cattle equivalent of gross packer revenue ** based on formula estimating lean hog equivalent of gross packer revenue GENERAL COMMENTS: Can cattle feeders stop (or at least slow) the bleeding of the cash market? That's the big question as the last trading week of April begins. Given how aggressively futures led the country trade lower last week, the ability of the board will be key. Regardless, packer activity Monday will be limited to the distribution of new showlists. We expected the fed offering to be steady to somewhat larger. Our guess is that producers will start out pricing ready cattle around $128 to $130 in the South and $205 in the North. Live and feeder futures are likely to open on a mixed basis as early week traders jockey between residual selling interest and short-covering.