Market Summary

Slaughter cows steady with last week, good cows on either side of $2. Slaughter bulls higher, to $2.40. Heavy feeders sharply higher, up $7-8.  Grass type cattle fully steady.  This week was very important to the market, as all live cattle contracts traded over $2 USD, with many contracts reaching new highs.  Some perspective is useful here.  The cattle market has showed extraordinary strength since bottoming last September/October and it’s important to understand why. This rally has occurred basically because of incredible demand for beef, not because of shortage of supply. All fresh beef retail reached a new record high last month. Today the US cattle in feed report comes out and its expected to see a sharp drop in placements into feedlots. This will mark the beginning of the supply shortage that has been expected for 2 years now. We are beginning to enter a cattle market that is more focussed on lack of supply and that is what the futures are trading now. A word of caution here. The US government seems intent on causing a recession with extremely high government spending, layoffs, and tariffs. If this occurs i think it could cause a bit of a drop in beef demand. I can’t think of a recession in US history where beef demand wasn’t affected to some degree. Fortunately, supply is set to fall dramatically as this occurs so I doubt the effects will be as severe as in the past.  Anyway, we are in a record cattle market and we are weeks away from learning about tariffs and how they’ll affect our business. Panic slowly. I doubt that it s a disaster, but rather a just another challenge in out business. We have incredibly good fundamentals in this business.  Ian

Market News

APRIL 3 SALE HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO LOW NUMBERS AND THE UNCERTAINTY OF THE MARKETS

Are you thinking of consigning equipment or shop tools this spring? Give Justin a call @ 587-281-2527 as we are in the planning stages of our June sale.

GIVE THE OFFICE A CALL OR EMAIL US WITH THE VACCINATION PROGRAM ON YOUR CALVES.

When bringing in cattle please fill out manifests for Feeder cattle separate from Cows/Bulls.

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