Agricultural News
Weekly boxed beef trade with Bob Czerwien for week ending Jan 31
Wed, 04 Feb 2015 05:28:19 CST
The daily spot Choice box beef cutout ended the week last Fri at $242.44 which was $11.30 lower. There were 876 loads sold for the week in the daily box beef cutout. It was about 10.5 percent of the total volume.
The Comprehensive or weekly average Choice cutout, which includes all types of sales including the daily spot cutout, was $250.47 which was $6.63 lower. There were 8245 total loads sold which was 1807 loads higher than the previous week. The formula sales were at 3496 loads which was 143 loads lower than last week and about 42 percent of the total loads sold.
Exports as reported on the weekly box beef report are predominately muscle cuts and they were at 903 loads which was 295 loads higher than the previous week. 176 loads were sold to our NAFTA Neighbors and 727 loads were shipped overseas.
The most recent out-front sales were at 2407 loads which was 1647 loads higher than last week and the biggest numbers that we have seen in a long time. The biggest component of the out front sales this week were 1440 loads of long term contracts which is much bigger than normal.
Taking a look at the primal cuts, the choice chuck, round, and loin primal cut prices were 7-10 lower and the rib primal was about 3 higher. Last year at this time we saw a dramatic rise in the chuck and round primals because parts of them were ground and used for ground beef.
This year however we have seen an enormous increase in imports of fresh beef which is predominately trimmings and goes into ground beef products. The latest report of imported meat passed for entry into the US for Jan 24 showed that week we imported 22,786 metric tons of fresh beef which equates to over 50 million pounds for that one week. Year to date for the first 4 weeks of this year we are running 56 % higher fresh beef imports than last year and Australia is up 99 %, providing the biggest individual chunk of the imports and New Zealand is up 50 % and they finally passed Canada in total tonnage year to date. Our high beef prices and the higher value of the dollar are definitely attracting imports.
The big item to watch in recent weeks has been the fifty percent trimmings which sky rocketed for a while after the first of the year but dropped almost 40 dollars during last week alone. They helped push the cutout higher for a while because they are the single largest cut in the cutout but then plummeted. They reached 145 mid Jan then 101 last Friday.
The Cow Cutout was 1.60 lower and the ninety percent trimmings were 1.12 higher last Friday. The cow cutout was at 236.99 and the Select cutout was 235.74 on Friday which inverted the spread.
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