August 24

8/24 –In Friday’s Cattle on Feed report, the USDA said feedlot inventories on Aug 1st were 11.3M head, up 1.6% from a year ago. New placements onto feedlots in July were larger than expected at 11.0% above 2019. The jump in placements shows that beef is flowing through the system again and that feedlots are catching up on the April-May backlog in feeder cattle that resulted from processing plant closures. Year-over-year beef production turned positive again in June after plunging 17.7% in Apr-May. In the past 11 weeks, beef output has averaged 1.8% above last year. Larger feedlot numbers should be bearish for beef prices this fall. Cattle futures that averaged $125.17/cwt in January, and plunged to $83.83 in April, have rebounded to $105.80/cwt. Cattle futures prices have declined a bit but are still averaging $110.16 for Q4 2020; $113.63 for 1st half 2021.