Texas Daily Ag Market News Summary 6/23/15

Posted 9 years 158 days ago by

Feeder cattle steady and active with instances of $4 to $5 higher; futures higher.
Fed cattle cash trade inactive; formula trades lower; futures higher; beef prices higher.
Cotton higher.
Grains higher; soybeans higher.
Crude oil higher; natural gas lower.
Stock markets higher.

Texas feeder cattle auctions quoted prices steady and active with instances of $4 to $5 higher. Feeder cattle futures settled $2.35 higher to close at $225.78 per hundredweight (cwt). The Texas fed cattle cash market was inactive Monday. Wholesale boxed beef values were higher, with Choice Grade settling at $253.04 per cwt and Select Grade at $248.06 per cwt. Estimated cattle harvest for the week totaled 111,000 head, on a par with last week’s total and down 4,000 from last year. Year-to-date harvest is down 3.5%. Fed cattle futures were $0.55 higher, closing at $152.45 per cwt.

Cotton prices were higher, with cash up 0.75 cents and futures 0.71 cents, to settle at 62.63 cents per pound and 64.03 cents per pound, respectively. For the reporting period of June 15-21, the USDA NASS Texas field office indicated that row crops across the state continued to progress as planting continued. Ninety-one percent of cotton acreage has been planted, up three percentage points from the previous week, but down five percentage points from last year.

Corn and grain sorghum prices were higher, with corn cash and futures prices both gaining $0.07. Grain sorghum cash prices rose $0.03 to close at $6.70 per cwt. Soybean futures prices were $0.18 higher, closing at $9.90 per bushel. Of the 99 percent of corn acreage that has been planted, 95 percent has emerged, five percentage points below the same time last year.

Wheat cash and futures prices each settled $0.09 higher to close at $4.67 per bushel and $5.12 per bushel, respectively. Sixty-four percent of the Texas wheat crop has been harvested, with 47% of wheat acreage in Good to Excellent condition.

Stock markets closed higher yesterday, supported by increases in financial and health-care shares. Crude oil prices rose $0.07 to close at $59.68 per barrel, as investors weighed concerns of an oversupplied market against optimism of a deal on bailout aid for Greece.

From the Weekly Recap:

AUSTIN – (June 22, 2015) For the week ending June 20, 2015, Texas auctions quoted feeder cattle prices mostly steady, with instances of sales ranging from $6 lower to $10 higher per hundredweight (cwt). Texas weekly direct feeder cattle sales were steady to $4 higher. Wholesale beef values were higher, with Choice Grade gaining $5.60 to close at $251.32 per cwt and Select Grade gaining $5.81 to close at $246.23 per cwt. Net export sales for June 5-11were down 50 percent from the previous week. Export shipments were up one percent from the previous week, and shipments primarily went to Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea.

Cotton cash prices were 0.50 cents lower than the previous week and closed at 61.88 cents per pound. July futures prices settled at 63.32 cents per pound, 0.75 cents lower than last week. For the reporting period of June 8-14, the USDA NASS Texas field office indicated that row crops across the state continued to progress as planting continued in many areas. Eighty-eight percent of cotton acreage has been planted. That’s up 13 percentage points from the previous week but down four percentage points from last year. Net export cotton sales were up 21 percent from the previous week’s sales. Shipments were down 33 percent from the previous week and 36 percent from the average.

Wheat cash prices lost $0.23 to settle at $4.58 per bushel. Futures prices also lost $0.23 to settle at $5.03 per bushel. The USDA NASS Texas field office reported that 47 percent of the Texas wheat crop has been harvested, with 48 percent of the acreage in good-to-excellent condition. Eighty percent of the Texas Winter Wheat crop remains in fair-to-excellent condition. Net export sales for wheat were 315,700 metric tons (MT). The primary destinations were Japan, Mexico and Iraq.

Texas corn prices were steady to higher, with cash prices up to $3.78 per bushel and futures prices remaining at $3.53 per bushel. The USDA NASS Texas field office reported 94 percent of the planted Texas corn crop has emerged, which is six percentage points below this same point last year. Ninety-eight percent of Texas corn acreage had been planted, which is up five percentage points from last week but down two percentage points from the same period last year. Corn export sales were up 27 percent from the previous week and three percent from the four-week average. Export shipments were 27 percent higher than the previous week and six percent higher than the average.

According to USDA NASS, areas of the Plains, Cross Timbers and Upper Coast received upwards of four inches of rainfall, with a few areas receiving more than six inches. Last week’s U.S. Drought Monitor for Texas showed a slight improvement in drought conditions for the state, with only about 6.8 percent of Texas still in some stage of drought intensity. Additionally, none of the state remains in severe, extreme or exceptional drought, that’s down nearly 50 percent from three months ago. On the national level, drought conditions improved slightly, with nearly 40 percent of the U.S. experiencing abnormal dryness or some degree of drought.

Daily Market Summary Data for 6/23/2015

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