Texas Daily Ag Market News Summary 10/2/15

Posted 9 years 58 days ago by

Feeder cattle auction quoted prices $4 to $20 lower; futures higher.

Fed cattle cash trade was active; formula trades lower; futures higher; Beef prices lower.

Cotton cash steady; futures lower.

Grains and soybeans mixed.

Crude oil higher; natural gas higher.

Stock markets higher.

Texas feeder cattle auctions quoted prices $4 to $20 lower. Feeder cattle futures were $2.10 higher, closing at $179.50 per hundredweight (cwt). The Texas fed cattle cash trade was active yesterday, closing at 118.00 per cwt. Whole sale boxed beef values were lower; with choice grade losing $2.85 settling at $205.77 per cwt, and select grade losing $2.84 settling at $201.36 per cwt. Estimated cattle harvest for the week totaled 557,000 head, down 3,000 from last week’s total and down 8,000 from a year ago. Year-to-date harvest is down 1.4%. Fed cattle futures were $1.67 lower, closing at $123.07 per cwt. Net sales of 8,800 MT for 2015 were down 47 percent from the previous week and 32 percent from the prior 4-week average. Increases were reported for South Korea, Mexico, and Hong Kong. Exports of 11,000 MT were down 10 percent from the previous week, but up 7 percent from the prior 4-week average. The primary destinations were Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea.

Cotton cash prices were steady staying at 58.87 cents per pound. Futures prices were lower, losing 0.45 cents, to settle at 59.20 cents per pound. Net upland sales totaling 117,300 RB for 2015/2016 were up 29 percent from the previous week and 39 percent from the prior 4-week average. Increases were reported for Turkey, Vietnam, and Bangladesh. Exports of 70,500 RB were down 36 percent from the previous week and 39 percent from the prior 4-week average. The primary destinations were Mexico, Turkey, and South Korea.

Corn and grain sorghum prices were mostly higher, with corn cash prices staying steady and corn futures prices gaining $0.02 settling at $3.99 and $3.89 per bushel, respectively. Net sales of 748,200 MT for 2015/2016 were up 76 percent from the previous week. Increases reported for Mexico, Egypt, and Colombia. Grain sorghum prices gained a penny to settle at $6.15 per cwt. Net sales of 163,600 MT for 2015/2016. Exports of 42,200 MT, down 55 percent from the previous week and 60 percent from the prior 4-week average, were reported to Haiti, Japan, and Mexico.

Wheat prices were lower with cash and futures prices losing $0.07 settling at $4.19 and $5.01 per bushel, respectively. Net sales of 77,100 metric tons for delivery in marketing year 2015/2016--a marketing-year low--were down 73 percent from the previous week and 75 percent from the prior 4-week average. Increases were reported for Indonesia, Brazil, and Colombia. Exports of 564,400 MT were down 8 percent from the previous week, but up 3 percent from the prior-4 week average. The primary destinations were China, South Korea, and Nigeria.

Stock markets closed higher yesterday, boosted by energy shares as the price of crude increased. Crude oil prices closed $0.80 higher yesterday, settling at $45.54 per barrel.

Daily Market Summary Data 10/2/15

If you are interested in receiving this daily report, please subscribe here.

From Agri-Pulse

WASHINGTON, Oct. 2, 2015 - Key lawmakers involved in transportation issues are working to come up with a compromise that would push back the current end-of-year deadline for implementation of a rail safety system - avoiding a threatened disruption of grain and fertilizer deliveries.

In the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008, Congress directed rail providers to install Positive Train Control (PTC) on rail lines that carry passengers or hazardous materials. Despite the seven-year warning and the allocation of what the Association of American Railroads calls “enormous human and financial resources.” Railroads say they won't be able to have the technology fully implemented by Dec. 31. With that in mind, House and Senate leaders are working on a possible compromise that would extend the PTC implementation deadline until the end of 2018.

“I hope what's going to happen in the next few days is our staffs sit down and figure out if we can find the common ground and find something that we can move over here,” Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Oct. 1. “If we get in a situation where we're ping-ponging this thing back and forth, that's not going to be a good outcome.”

The Senate passed language in July that included an extension of the PTC deadline, and earlier this week, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee leadership introduced the Positive Train Control Enforcement and Implementation Act (H.R. 3651), which would push back the deadline three years. In a statement, committee Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa., said extending the PTC deadline “is essential to preventing significant disruptions of both passenger and freight rail service across the country.”

Ag groups think so too. Rail service providers have publicly stated that they plan to stop service on certain lines to avoid breaking federal law if the deadline is not extended. That could put grain and fertilizer delivery at risk starting at the beginning of November, according to a coalition of more than 40 national and state commodity and agriculture-related groups. “Failure to secure an extension by October 31, 2015, will have severe and far-reaching consequences,” the groups said in a letter this week. The groups call on Congress to pass an extension “no later than October 31st,” saying that logistical decisions such as facility closures and removal of tank cars from the system are made “well before December.”

Thune, who sits on the Senate agriculture committee and chairs the Senate committee dealing with transportation, said there are differences between the two chambers' approaches to extending the deadline but called those differences “reconcilable.” He said he sensed “a lot of momentum building behind fixing this” in both chambers and in both parties, saying an “aspirational deadline” is for a resolution by the middle of October.

There's no indication if the parties involved will be pushing a standalone bill or including the measure in a highway funding bill currently being negotiated. Thune said an agreement could be attached to the highway bill “if the highway bill moves.” Current highway legislation is set to expire at the end of the month.

PTC is a safety system designed to automatically stop a train to help avoid collisions and other accidents. Some have compared the huge undertaking required to install PTC to the industry's switch from steam to diesel power, saying it is a huge shift and massive undertaking for the industry.