DTN Closing Livestock Comment 12/18 16:54
18 Dec 2017
DTN Closing Livestock Comment 12/18 16:54 Spot Dec Live Races After Cash, Leaving Deferreds in the Dust For the most part, the cattle complex settled moderately lower, with only soon-to-expire Dec live supported by greater packer spending on Friday. Lean hog contracts closed mostly lower, though the front-end caught most of the selling pressure. By John Harrington DTN Livestock Analyst GENERAL COMMENTS Feedlot activity was limited to the distribution of new showlists. The pre-Christmas offering appears to be generally smaller than last week with only Nebraska showing more marketable steers and heifers. According to the closing report, the national hog base is $0.08 lower ($50-$57.87, weighted average $56.05). Cheered by the pending passage of major tax legislation, the stock market again ran to new highs. Corn futures settled fractionally lower at the end of a typically lackluster late-year trading session. The Dow closed at another new record at 24,792, up 140 points. The Nasdaq jumped by 58.