Chicago | Reuters—Benchmark December live cattle futures LCZ24 on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange climbed to their highest in nearly two months on Tuesday, supported by technical buying and a rosy outlook for beef demand tied to strength in Wall Street equity markets, analysts said.
CME most-active December live cattle LCZ24 settled up 0.575 cent at 184.400 cents per pound after reaching 184.925 cents, the contract’s highest since Aug. 1. The spot October contract ended down 0.050 cent at 183.200 cents.
CME November feeder cattle futures FCV24 rose 0.650 cent to settle at 243.400 cents per pound.
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Live cattle futures have climbed since the U.S. Federal Reserve’s large half-point rate cut last week, and the S&P 500 and Dow ended at record highs on Tuesday despite an unexpected decline in U.S. consumer confidence in September.
“All the big worries about the economy seem to have faded into the background for the time being. That makes us feel good about domestic (beef) demand,” said Ted Seifried, chief market strategist for the Zaner Group.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture priced choice cuts of boxed beef on Tuesday afternoon at $301.89 per hundredweight (cwt), up 8 cents from Monday, while select cuts fell to $286.87 per cwt, down 92 cents.
Hog futures closed mostly higher as well. The benchmark CME December futures LHZ24 settled up 0.100 cent at 74.975 cents per pound after reaching 75.800 cents, the contract’s highest since June 3.
Traders await the USDA’s quarterly Hogs and Pigs report on Thursday. Analysts surveyed by Reuters on average expect the government to report the U.S. hog herd as of Sept. 1 at 76.285 million head, up 0.2 per cent from a year earlier, while the number of hogs kept for breeding was seen down 2.1 per cent year-on-year.
