The number of cattle in US feedlots declined 4% over the last year. January 2023 net feeder cattle placements were down 4% year over year while finished cattle marketings last month were 4% larger than in the same month a year earlier. Recent feedlot activity suggests finished cattle sales over Read more…
August live cattle appear to have significant upside potential based on the latest supply/usage forecasts from USDA. We present the results of a cattle price forecast model which uses US beef production and exports combined with the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to project a late winter through summer price Read more…
Historically August lean hog values have been closely associated with summer pork production, pork exports and the US gross domestic economic income. The GDI contains both real economic growth and inflation. We have assumed a 2% growth rate in real incomes and a 5% inflation rate for GDI. The summer Read more…
US farmers are likely to increase corn planted area in 2023 despite increased production costs. Corn at current old crop prices provide favorable returns to land after deducting variable costs data as provided by USDA. Corn returns also hold an edge to the same calculation for Midwest soybean farmers.. Read more…
Historically, soybean prices relative to corn returns, combined with past acreage trends. has accounted for 93% of the variation in the March soybean planted area survey forecast. Plugging in this year’s soybean and corn values results in a 88.9 million acre planted area forecast compared to the March survey soybean Read more…
This month USDA forecast the 2022/2023 US soybean carryout at 225 million bushels or 5% of crop year Usage. July soybean meal futures prices have advanced more than declined in 13 of 15 years (since 1970) in which USDA forecast a 8% or less US soybean carryout to usage ratio Read more…
USDA reported the potential feeder cattle dropped by one million head over the last year. We have scattered the price range for the June finished cattle contract as a function of the potential feeder supply. The projected price range is the same as we provided in our January 25, 2023 Read more…