January 22

1/22 - In Friday’s cattle report, the USDA said feedlot inventories on Jan 1st were 12.93M head, up 2.1% from a year ago. New placements onto feedlots in Dec were down 4.5%, and Dec marketings were 0.9% below last year. Like last month, larger feedlot inventories, combined with fewer placements and marketings, indicate a back-up in supply and/or a slowdown in demand. Consumers are pushing back against high prices, and producers are not holding back females for breeding. The percentage of heifers in feedlots remains high at 39.7%, and the number of heifers in feedlots (and headed to slaughter) is up 1.8% from a year ago. CME cattle futures bottomed seasonally at $162.35/cwt  on 12/7/23 and have since recovered to $174.37 (1/19/24). That’s 11.8% higher than last year’s $155.95. However, forward futures contracts for 2024 are averaging $177.24/cwt, just 2.7% above 2023’s average of $172.60.