Texas Daily Ag Market News Summary 5/21/15

Posted 9 years 191 days ago by

Feeder cattle mostly steady; futures higher.
Fed cattle cash trade reporting after inactivity on Tuesday; formula trades higher; futures lower; beef prices mixed.
Cotton lower.
Grains and soybeans mixed.
Crude oil higher; natural gas lower.
Stock markets lower.

Texas feeder cattle auctions quoted prices mostly steady. Feeder cattle futures closed $0.38 higher at $219.73 per hundredweight (cwt). The Texas fed cattle cash trade quoted prices of $159 per (cwt). Wholesale boxed beef values were mixed, with Choice grade losing $0.61 and Select grade gaining $0.03, settling at $264.98 per cwt and $251.06 per cwt, respectively. Estimated cattle harvest through Wednesday totaled 340,000 head, up 1K from last week, but down 15K from a year ago. Year-to-date harvest is down 4.2%. Fed cattle futures were $0.63 lower than the previous day’s prices.

Cotton cash prices closed 0.25 cents lower than the previous day’s prices. Futures prices were 0.20 cents lower, settling at 64.15 cents per pound.

Corn and grain sorghum prices were lower, with corn cash and futures prices each settling $0.02 lower, closing at $3.85 per bushel and $3.60 per bushel, respectively. Grain sorghum cash prices lost $0.03 to settle at $6.79per cwt. Soybeans closed $0.05 lower, settling at $9.41 per bushel.

Wheat cash and futures prices each closed $0.05 higher, settling at $5.00 per bushel and $5.45 per bushel, respectively.

This week’s U.S. Drought Monitor for Texas showed a significant improvement in drought conditions for the state, with only about 29.9% of Texas still in some stage of drought intensity, down almost 5.7 percentage points from last week. Additionally, 3.29% of the state remains in severe, extreme, or exceptional drought, down 4.4 percentage points from last week and over 24.5 percentage points from three months ago. On the national level, drought conditions improved slightly, with almost 52.2% of the U.S. experiencing abnormal dryness or some degree of drought, down more than than 3.6 percentage points from last week.

Stock markets were lower yesterday as the Federal Reserve showed unwillingness to raise interest rates in June. Crude oil prices were $2.720 higher, settling at $59.98 per barrel. Yesterday’s price gains ended a five-session run of falling oil prices.

Daily Market Summary Data for 5/21/2015

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