anybody been trading cattle the past few days? wild to say the least, charts are starting to look lumber-esque with all those gaps! haha
I notice a divergence between Live Cattle April 2009 and December 2009 price chart patterns. The trend of the December 2009 contract price value series may be increasing.
summer grilling season is nearing......pork packers making roughly $3 per head which is a drastic improvement from last weeks margins which were as much as negative $20. High pork cutout values and lower cash trade should give some support to hogs this week but who knows. cattle are in the same situation except packers are losing roughly $19 per head still but still an improvement from last week. boxed beef values have continued to increase over the last week but not to near the extent of hogs. I like bullspreading j/m hogs as well as j/m cattle but while I am currently bullspread both hogs and cattle I am a little more concerned with the cattle than with the hogs just due to more negative packer margins. Interested to see what this week brings YT
What's the issue with the meats, and their lack of participation with the broad commodity rally lately??
slack demand, h1n1 was a real kick in the pants for the swine complex. God the pig spreads have been $ lately though. I hate directional trading the meats, I occasionally do some hedging with the feeders but it's pretty rare anymore.
suprised nobody has mentioned selling cattle/hog spreads right now. August has been ripe for the shorting the last 3 days.
Here's a price forecast I put together through the 14th of July for August Live Cattle futures. It was updated yesterday after the close, and you can see the actual price noted in blue, while forecast is in red. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Please feel free to let me know. The numbers above the blue line (top right of chart) are July dates, and I can't believe it, but I labeled today as the 3rd, so that's wrong. I finished this late last night, forgive me.