DTN Closing Livestock Comment 07/08 16:49

DTN Closing Livestock Comment 07/08 16:49 Badly Hammered Cattle Futures Finally Catch Late-Week Bounce For the most part, the cattle complex closed moderately higher to end a tough trading week. Most of the short-covering appeared to be tied to profit-taking. On the other hand, lean hog futures continued a week-long sell-off with nearbys losing more ground to deferreds. By John Harrington DTN Livestock Analyst GENERAL COMMENTS: The cash cattle trade remains untested as of this writing, a strange state of affairs given the almost total lack of business so far. We suspect that some business will eventually develop late Friday afternoon if buyers decided to move a bit closer to steady money with last week. At this time, Southern bids are no better than $119.00-$120.00, Northern bids appear no better than $190.00-$192.00. Steady money with last week would be around $122.00 in the South and $195.00-$196.00 in the North. The National Hog Base closed $0.86 lower compared with the Prior Day settlement ($69.00-$78.00, weighted average $76.33). From Friday to Friday, livestock futures scored the following changes: Aug LC, off $0.75; Oct LC, off $0.95; Aug FC, up $1.00; Sep FC, up $0.80, Jul LH, off $2.62, Aug LH, off $5.13. Corn futures closed 13-14 cents higher in light trade volume. Given the bearish mud-slide seen since late June, today's action was probably little more than a dead-cat-bounce. The stock market closed sharply higher thanks in part to surprisingly strong job growth in June (i.e., up 287,000). The Dow closed 250 points higher with the Nasdaq better by 79.