Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) cattle futures fell sharply on Thursday, amid fund liquidation, growing concern over consumer demand and signs of prices falling in the cash market, reported Reuters.
Traders and funds scrambled to shed some of their long positions, after betting the bull market in cattle futures would continue well into the spring, analysts said.
The futures sell-off, said analysts, has been picking up steam since last month's US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) monthly Cattle on Feed report showed larger-than-expected placements of cattle into US feedlots in September.
"We are just melting down in the live cattle market right now," said Karl Setzer, partner at Consus Ag Consulting.
The cash cattle market is weakening, too, with a cash trade on Thursday in the Kansas market at $179 per hundredweight (cwt) - down a whopping $6 per cwt from a week earlier, said Don Roose, president of US Commodities in West Des Moines, Iowa.
Beef packer margins have continued to fall, too, as cattle slaughter pace slowed and packers losing $103.50 per head on Thursday - a bigger loss than Wednesday and a week earlier.
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