April 22

4/22 - In Friday’s cattle report, the USDA said feedlot inventories on Apr 1st were 11.82M head, up 1.5% from a year ago. However, new placements onto feedlots in March were down 12.3%, and marketings down 13.7% from last year. Herd liquidation may be slowing. Last week’s U.S. drought monitor showed some lingering issues in Kansas and Iowa, but mostly improvement over a year ago and expectations of better grazing conditions this spring. The percentage of heifers on feed (and not being retained for breeding) dropped from 39.7% on Jan 1 to 38.5% on Apr 1– better but still nowhere near expansion type levels. In April’s WASDE, the USDA projected a 1.9% drop in beef production for 2024, coming on top of a 4.7% decline in 2023. CME cattle futures closed at $181.48/cwt on Friday (4/19), coincidentally right on their average for Q1 2024, which was 12.5% above Q1 2023 and 29.9% above Q1 2022.