Grain and livestock trade both sides of steady early in the session.
Brad Kooima, with Kooima Kooima Varilek, says live and feeder cattle futures have bounced off trendline support, at least so far.
However, he’s not confident those chart areas will hold due to the list of negative headlines pressing the market.
Starting off the list is kill cuts announced by packers for this week including a 32 hour week at two major packers and a regional will be dark.
Cash trade was also negative last week down $2 in the South and $1 in the North dressed and there are expectations cash could see pressure again this week.
The border has also opened to Mexican feeder cattle imports, which started at 500 head a day but have quickly ramped up to 3000.
The new strain of HPAI or bird flu also has some traders cautious about the cattle market.
That has caused some fund liquidation and a drop in open interest.
Lean hog futures have held up well and posted a higher weekly close last week, despite all of the tariff news.
While Mexican tariffs have been delayed 30 days, Chinese tariffs of 10% have gone into effect and retaliatory measures have been announced.
Kooima says China is a huge pork markets taking one in five pigs produced in the U.S.
Corn and soybeans have seen two sided trade early in the session positioning ahead of the USDA report, but also watching tariff developments and South American weather which has turned more favorable.
Mexico bought 14.4 million bu. of U.S. corn for 2024-25 on a flash tender this morning.
However, the grains all posted higher weekly closes last week and have been resilient with funds continuing to buy.
Kooima says that may be inflationary buying but corn and soybeans will need to close above resistance areas to keep that buying momentum going.
