home → articles → Marketing | Email to a Friend

Cattle Markets Normally Affected By Seasonality, This Year Maybe Not

published: April 1st 2011
source: Cheyenne Star

Historically, seasonal cattle price patterns have been one of the most reliable tendencies in cattle markets. This is particularly true in a stable market environment. However, the market is anything but stable now and that means that normal price seasonality may not mean much this year.

Anticipating cattle markets is always a daunting task and is particularly challenging this year with so many short and long run factors affecting the market at the current time. Feeder and fed cattle prices have advanced more than seasonally through the first quarter but still there are indications that markets may be close to a seasonal top or plateau. However, there is much turbulence in the water and the picture is far from clear.

Most recently, a series of global events has introduced additional uncertainty and hesitation into markets in general and have affected cattle markets as well. The continuing unrest in the Middle East and Africa provokes general political uncertainty and adds volatility to oil markets. The Japanese disaster and ongoing nuclear concerns add additional uncertainty to markets. These factors may or may not subside in coming days and weeks but make it particularly difficult to read cattle markets at this time.

Though cattle and boxed beef prices have looked a bit “toppy” recently, it is unclear if this is normal seasonality or short term uncertainty causing a brief pause in the recent strong market trends. The combination of global unrest and seasonality may cause cattle markets to plateau but the underlying market strength, driven by supply fundamentals may limit any seasonal weakness through the middle of the year if the global factors subside.

Potentially adding more uncertainty, attention will begin to be focused on 2011 crop conditions and corn markets may add additional volatility to the mix and emerging drought conditions may temper summer feeder cattle demand.