Cattle and hogs were lower early Monday then recovered. Grains were mixed with soybean lower and corn and wheat higher.
Live Cattle Make New Contract Highs
Live cattle futures made new and all-time contract highs on Friday with the April contract closing above $250.
Brad Kooima with Kooima Kooima Varilek says the cattle market started off lower on Monday with bearish outside markets, like skyrocketing crude oil, but quickly turned mixed.
So, he isn’t concerned about the initial consolidation.
“I mean, you’ve got an overbought market. You know, actually, the stock market has firmed up a long ways here, but you got crude oil up $7.50. And some of those things, you know, cause, I think, give the market some reason to pause here a little bit.”
Cash Higher on Friday on Light Volume
The other reason he thinks futures are sound is tied to the cash trade.
While he calls it disappointing, cash was steady to higher on Friday on light volume.
The volume in the North was at $248 but with a few trades at $250, which is an all-time high. Dressed prices ranged from $385 to $389, steady to $4 higher. The South ranged from $246 to $249, mostly $248 to $249.
The previous cash record for the 5-area weighted steer was $246.91, scored the week of February 23, 2026 and last week’s cash trade was $244.96, so that could be exceeded.
“Some of us got $250 in the north to a regional packer. It wasn’t widespread at all. None of the majors ever bid it. The rest of the outfit seemed like it was more like $248 or pass. And so everybody, most everybody passed. And then there was a little bit of trade in Kansas Friday at $249. And then there was kind of unusual, but there was some trade in Texas on Saturday at $248. So, you know, coming in with April cattle above $251, Yeah. You know, maybe we’re a little over our skis here with futures if the cash is only going to be $248 only. Right?”
Negotiation volume the previous week was nearly 81,000 head so the packers may not have needed cattle right away.
Cash Cattle This Week?
However, it won’t take long for packers to need inventory, so he is optimistic about a higher cash tone this week.
“I think this week will be interesting because we maybe maybe you’ve got the line of scrimmage here pretty, pretty tight now. So you’ll have a packer or at least several of them that are going to be quite close to the knife and are going to need to buy some cattle. You got a producer that maybe carried a few cattle over and still some of the producers still fighting with this deal of well the cattle actually don’t really even make any money at $250 believe it or not.”
He says some of the yearlings had extremely high break evens so there is some resistance on the part of the seller. So, he says it will be interesting to see who wins the battle this week.
“I guess I’m going to go with what’s been working. And what’s been happening is that the feedlot has still maintained leverage. So I think there’s a shot we’ll be a little bit higher. Let’s go $252. I don’t know. Maybe that’s a little bit optimistic, but I’ll take my shot that we’re going to be a little bit better. But it won’t happen until late in the week. And I think it’ll be better because the packer is going to have to chase it because it’s that time of year where you expect to do beef business. And they got to be a reliable, you know, they got to be a reliable producer for that,
too, as well, or a resource for that.”
Futures Keep Climbing?
So with higher cash Kooima thinks the live cattle futures could keep climbing.
“I still think we’re in a window of time here of 30 to 45 days where cleaning up the old crop yearlings. You know there’s a few big cattle but we don’t have the weight problem that we had three four weeks ago and as you’re going into the front of these front end of these calves that aren’t hardly fat. I just don’t think that the feedlot’s going to be in have any urgency at all to sell as these cattle are barely at replacement cost,” he explains.
JBS Strike Settled
The union at the JBS beef plant in Greeley, Co. also settled over the weekend.
Kooima says that is slightly friendly for the market even though the employees were back to work last week.
“I think that the reality of it is I don’t think anyone is very surprised. I think we had this conversation at the very beginning of this thing, Michelle, that realistically, is this going to really go anywhere? I mean, every other plant signed off on the same deal. JBS isn’t going to make a special deal for one facility. And so I don’t think anyone’s terribly surprised in the fact that they had gone back to work basically anyway last week. It’s not bearish because it does mean that that Greeley plant is going to have to get after it and do some procurement of cattle that they wouldn’t have been doing two weeks ago. But again, I think anticipated.”
Feeders Not Making Contract Highs
While feeders have made new highs for the move they have not made new contract highs like the live cattle.
Is that the fear of the border reopening to Mexican cattle soon?
“I believe in some of these old sayings like feeders are the leaders. Certainly the feeder cattle have led us through a great big part of this bull market cycle that we’ve been in lately. One could argue that feeder cattle, you know, there’s something called cattle crush. You take the price of the feeders against when they’re going to be fat, balance in the equation what the corn price is. Anyway, the crush has and has been consistently for over a year shown that either the feeder cattle are too high or the fats are too low. So maybe some adjustment in that crush
spread where the feeders had gotten themselves out. But I also think certainly the border being potentially reopened at some point, is part of it,” he adds.
Hogs Disappoint
Lean hog futures made new lows for the move early Monday.
The deferred lean hogs posted lower weekly closes last week and April was only up slightly as the market has continued to underperform according to Kooima.
“To me, the overall fundamental news of the hogs is more positive than reacting. Underperforming is a polite way of saying that I don’t understand it. For me, that’s how I feel. I continue to hear. PRRS talk, breakouts, train wrecks at a number of farrowing facilities that a lot of guys in my area source pigs from. You know, it looks to me like the supply of hogs for the summertime is still going to be a little tighter than expected because of those disease problems. You know, it could be that we continue to fret about global demand. Whether or not we’re doing anything to get along any better with China sure doesn’t appear like it.”
The charts are also beat up he says, “This is new lows for June hogs. The nature of hogs would be that they’ll fool me again, maybe, and now they’ll catch. But to me, fundamentally, we should be able to. to trade $110 to !112 in the summer. We’ll see.”
Grains Correct
Corn and wheat are higher on Monday with soybeans lower in correction mode with the Iran conflict back on the front burner and crude oil up nearly $8.
Corn may be chasing higher wheat and crude oil and trading geopolitics again.
However, corn has corrected over 30 cents off the March 9 highs so it may just be a short lived correction says Kooima, especially with ending stocks still over 2 billion bu.
Meanwhile, soybeans are lower with concerns that China is supplying military weapons to Iran and that could be a sticking point for the mid-May meeting between the two leaders.
“If this goes back into a sustained conflict that might even include you know reparations with China,” he says.
Plus, Kooima thinks soybean oil is trying to divorce itself from the whole energy trade and put in a high last week.
