DTN Midday Livestock Comments 12/30 11:40

DTN Midday Livestock Comments 12/30 11:40 Cattle Continue to Trade Higher in the New Week Both the live cattle and feeder cattle contracts are keeping with last week's upward momentum as the contracts are now trading higher into Monday's noon hour. ShayLe Stewart DTN Livestock Analyst GENERAL COMMENTS: The livestock complex is trading mixed as the cattle contracts are continuing to venture higher, but the lean hog complex is trading lower. So long as boxed beef prices and the cash cattle market are able to continue to lend traders the fundamental support they need, the market shouldn't struggle to maintain its higher trend in cattle contracts. March corn is down 2 1/2 cents per bushel and March soybean meal is up $0.40. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 305.86 points. LIVE CATTLE: The live cattle complex is continuing with last week's rally as the nearby contracts are trading slightly higher. But between last week's uptick in boxed beef prices combined with the cash cattle market's ability to push prices $1.00 higher in both regions -- traders deem that there's plenty of support in the market to justify advancing the contracts once again. December live cattle are up $0.75 at $194.25, February live cattle are up $0.10 at $190.75 and April live cattle are up $0.12 at $193.47. The market's next resistance hurdle comes at $192. Last week Southern live cattle traded at mostly $192 which is $1.00 higher than the previous week's weighted average and Northern dressed cattle traded at mostly $307 which is also $1.00 higher than the previous week's weighted average. Boxed beef prices are higher: choice up $3.00 ($325.38) and select up $2.96 ($294.09) with a movement of 26 loads (13.27 loads of choice, 5.77 loads of select, zero loads of trim and 6.93 loads of ground beef). FEEDER CATTLE: The feeder cattle complex has thus far respected Friday's higher close which pushed most of the contracts above $260 which has been a threshold that the market has attempted to conquer but struggled to maintain long-term. But both the spot January 2025 contract and the nearby March 2025 contract are trading higher and keeping their contracts above that threshold which signals technical buy-in of the market's bullish fundamentals. Again, this week most sales barns will be closed early in the week, but some sales will hold their regular weekly offering if they're scheduled on Thursday or Friday. January feeders are up $0.15 at $261.52, March feeders are up $0.20 at $260.67 and April feeders are down $0.10 at $260.95. LEAN HOGS: The lean hog complex is slow to start this morning as the market wants to see more fundamental support arise in the marketplace. And while pork cutout values are slightly higher this morning, traders are not only looking for daily support in terms of higher prices, but they also yearn to see consistency -- especially in consumer demand. February lean hogs are down $3.17 at $80.97, April lean hogs are down $2.87 at $86.65 and June lean hogs are down $2.47 at $99.52. It's alarming to see the spot February contract trading below the market's nearby support plane at $83.00, which could mean that traders believe a technical correction for the near term may be necessary. The projected lean hog index for 12/27/2024 is down $0.05 at $84.35, and the actual index for 12/26/2024 is down $0.25 at $84.85. Hog prices are unavailable on the Daily Direct Morning Hog Report because of confidentiality. However, we can see that only 150 head have traded and that the market's five-day rolling average now sits at $79.10. Pork cutouts totaled 212.84 loads with 183.43 loads of pork cuts and 29.41 loads of trim. Pork cutout values: up $0.77, $95.84. ShayLe Stewart can be reached shayle.stewart@dtn.com (c) Copyright 2024 DTN, LLC. All rights reserved.