The cash fed cattle trade was slow to develop again last week, though not as slow as in recent prior weeks. Throughout the first half of the week, trade was nonexistent. Cattle feeders were asking $128-130 live and $202- 205 dressed and ignored the offers of $123 live in the Southern Plains and the $195 dressed bids.

No trend-setting trade had developed by Thursday afternoon last week. Expectations of continued sluggish demand, packers with plenty of contract cattle to work from, and futures making a steady upward run made for little motivation on the packer side.

Larger showlists, the expectation of more slaughter-ready cattle coming available in the short term due to limited feeding options given wheat pasture situations, and in-the-red packing margins gave packers the power on prices last week.

Thursday, Nov. 29, CME closed trading on wheat and its other commodities as usual. Its initial Deliverable Commodities Under Registration Report erroneously reported the number of wheat contracts available for delivery as substantially lower than accurate.

Some cash trade developed on Monday to the tune of a couple thousand head of cattle selling live in Texas at $128. This would be steady with the week prior. These cattle reportedly went to JBS and were thought to be effectively cleanup trade from the week before where they found themselves short bought.

The most recent Cattle on Feed (COF) report was released Friday, Nov. 16 covering cattle on feed in feedlots with at least a 1,000-head capacity as of Nov. 1 as well as cattle placed on feed and marketed during the month of October.

Despite the reportedly shortbought nature of many packers the week before, and the full production week expected this week, packers were not particularly quick to buy cattle during last week’s short window of purchasing opportunity. By Wednesday morning, no sales had been reported and very few bids had been placed.

In what has been called neutral to slightly bearish, the most recent USDA World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report was released Friday, Nov. 9. Beef production, imports and exports were lowered compared to the previous report, and corn and soybean yield and production estimates rose for the first time in a long while.

The cash fed cattle trade was particularly sluggish last week with only two loads of cattle selling to regional packers through the first half of the week. On Tuesday, one load sold in Iowa at $192 dressed, which would be below the prior week, and another sold Wednesday in Nebraska at $196 dressed, which would be steady with the prior week.

U.S. beef exports in September were well below a year ago. Despite sluggish volumes, however, the value of beef exports through the third quarter of 2012 remains ahead of last year’s recordsetting pace, according to statistics released by USDA and compiled by the U.