Cattle futures take a wild ride

After 9 consecutive up days, cattle futures collapsed on Thursday and raced lower with Feb LC touching limit down. Text messages flew and phones rang as reasons for the dramatic down were sought. Google searches brought up no news on which to pin the dramatic sell-off. Such is the new normal. Or perhaps it isn’t so new anymore. Late December saw a 6-day rally end in a similar, out-of-the-blue implosion. Uncannily, both times these collapses occurred, packers have been at a disadvantage in the week’s fed cattle negotiations and the bearish psychology related to the velocity and unexpected nature of the futures decline certainly influenced sellers the last time it occurred, which was the first week in January. Cassandra Fish with The Beef newsletter discusses volatile cattle market ups and downs. Read more…