A Cattle Short Squeeze

Wow, even in regional cattle exchanges you can still find short squeezes:

Vetterkind Cattle: Look For Short Covering Rally

As is typical for a Monday the cash feedlot trade was quiet yesterday, as feedlot managers spent most of the day putting together this week’s showlist and packer buyers assessing the new offerings. Numbers for sale this week are coming in 3,000 larger in Kansas 5,000 head larger in Nebraska, and 1,000 head larger in Colorado. The Texas showlist is coming in about steady with last week. It appears as though the biggest increases in cattle for sale this week is coming in the form of cash sales, except for Nebraska where we see a slight increase in formula numbers. Cattle feeders begin the week offering their cattle at $95 live in the south and $93 live or $1.48 dressed in the north. As of this writing there were no packer bids evident, however when they do surface we would expect them to be in the $88 live and $1.38 to $1.40 dressed range. Packers will have enough inventory to carry them into late week, so we do not expect to see any meaningful trade volume until Thursday of this week at the earliest. With demand remaining on the defensive and a few extra numbers around for sale, we will still look for a steady to $1 lower fed cattle trade this week. Feel that $90 live and $1.42 dressed should hold us this week. 

Elsewhere in the country we see a steady to softer undertone to most other classes of cattle to start the week. In So. St. Paul and Zumbrota MN fed cattle sales were trending steady to lower, with the beef fats bringing mostly $87 to $90. Holstein steers were bringing $82 to $85, about $1 lower than last week. The cow market was trending steady with some softer undertones noted. Cutter and boning utility cows were bringing $46 to $54, with the breakers and whites bringing $52 to $59. Slaughter bulls were trading mostly $61 to $64

As expected feeder cattle sales are starting the week on the defensive. On an estimated run of 7,200 head, Oklahoma City was calling their sale steady to $2 lower. Joplin, MO had about 4,500 head on offer and was calling their market the same as OKC, steady to $2 lower. In both sales the bulk of the 4 weight cattle were bringing $1.38 to $1.56, 5 weights were bringing $1.20 to $1.39, 6 weights were bringing $1.09 to $1.25, 7 weights were bringing $1.07 to $1.14, and the 8 weights were bringing $1.00 to $1.08. Would look for feeder cattle values to remain under pressure for most of the week.

It's great, these are the stories you won't find in The Journal, but via the wonder of Google News, we can now track stuff like Cattlenetwork.com.  Though, unless you think you actually have use for the cattle market roundup, probably wise not to get too bogged down in the alluring details.