As is often the case, the Placements from this past Friday's Cattle on Feed Report set the tone for the data, showing cattle placed into feedlots in this country under the numbers of a year ago and 5.5% less than what the pre report guesses were predicting. Tom Leffler with Leffler Commodities says that USDA reported August placements at 1.63 million head. He said that was 18.6 percent lower than the five year average, the second lowest August placement number of the past 20 years and the third largest placements of the past nine months.
The on feed count from the Friday government report shows 9.99 million head on feed in US feedlots. That was three percent above last year. Nebraska saw an increase of over four percent, Kansas was up one percent, while Texas and Oklahoma was unchanged versus a year ago. Market Analyst Tom Leffler of Leffler Commodities said this was the largest September on feed number of the past three years.
"Today's on feed number is the tenth time, out of the past eleven months, that the on feed has experienced year over year increases," Leffer said. "So we are continuing to see a report larger than what it was a year ago."
While placements were less than a year ago overall- the heaviest weight category reported by Uncle Sam showed 800 pound plus cattle were placement in greater numbers by a year ago by 3.9 percent. "Now the 800 pound placements have been higher now the previous 12 of 13 months, so we continue to see those heavy weight cattle coming in, which is also one of reasons we're seeing such heavy weight cattle coming out of feed yards, also," Leffler said.
Marketings continue to lag- August marketings totaled 1.59 million head, six percent below 2014. Leffler said this was 16.4 percent below the five year average and the eight straight month that the monthly marketings are at the lowest point of the past 20 years. Kansas was down one percent, Nebraska was down nine percent and Texas was down 13 percent compared to a year ago.
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