Grains are mixed early with livestock fully lower.
Brad Kooima of Kooima Kooima Varilek says the cattle are seeing pressure on end of month and quarter profit taking by the funds who are still long in the market.
The CFTC Commitment of Traders Report showed managed money long 138,000 live cattle contracts as of last Tuesday, an increase of nearly 18,000.
Funds are also record long in the feeder cattle futures at 34,000, up nearly 3,000 from the previous week.
Kooima says cash traded mostly steady last week on the volume, even though there were wide ranges in the North of $330- $345 dressed, most of the volume was at $335 paid by major packers.
The South traded mostly $209-$210, steady to $1 lower than the previous week’s weighted average.
Kooima is confident cash trade is not done breaking records but the packers are able to pull contract cattle at the beginning of a new month.
“We have the best demand period for beef just ahead of us with the grilling season firing up,” he notes.
The April 2 “Liberation Day” tariffs are the other big event being watched by the livestock traders.
Kooima says North American tariffs would be positive cattle, negative hogs with Mexico the top export customer for pork.
The fear of those tariffs is why Kooima thinks the lean hog futures faded a bullish USDA Quarterly Hogs and Pigs Report.
Grains are mixed with corn lower and soybeans higher reflecting the expectation for higher corn and lower soybean acreage verses last year in the USDA Prospective Plantings Report at 11 am.
Kooima thinks the corn market is trading 95 million corn acres or above already and below 84 million on soybeans.
He is still hopeful about old crop corn demand holding that market together as end users are finding value around the $4.50 level.
However, he says the cease fire in the Black Sea has been negative for wheat and corn as well.
Meanwhile, talk of higher blending mandates in the Renewable Fuels Standard for biomass based diesel is supporting soybean oil and in turn soybeans.
