Bottom Line: The feeder cattle market that appeared to be finding its footing in early September has now strengthened in the cash trade. Winter Livestock called feeder steers and heifers $10–$15 higher Wednesday at Dodge City, following strong Tuesday sales at La Junta, Beaver, Kingsville and other regional auctions. Yet the futures board moved sharply the other direction Wednesday. The result is a market sending two different signals: cattle in the ring are bringing stronger money while the board remains volatile.
The August Break Didn’t Keep Breaking
By the end of August, feeder cattle had taken a substantial step backward.
September feeder futures had fallen from $348.375 on August 5 to $320.90 by the end of the month, a decline of nearly $27.50/cwt. Cash markets softened as well, and cattlemen entering September had good reason to wonder whether the correction had further to run.
By September 10, however, the physical market was beginning to tell a different story.
Dey Money’s last report described feeder cattle as “finding their footing.” Futures remained well below their early-August highs, but auction prices across the High Plains weren’t following the board steadily downward.
Another week of sales has made that picture clearer.
The cash market didn’t just stop falling. In several places, it moved higher.
Dodge City: Feeders $10–$15 Higher
The clearest confirmation came Wednesday at Winter Livestock in Dodge City.
The September 16 sale moved 2,484 head, and Winter’s own market assessment was straightforward:
Feeder steers and heifers were $10–$15 higher. Calves were steady.
Several of the heavier steer sales illustrate just how much money is moving across the ring:
Average weight Price Approx. value/head 654 lb $387.00/cwt $2,531 702 lb $381.00/cwt $2,674 768 lb $349.50/cwt $2,684 876 lb $335.25/cwt $2,937 906 lb $332.25/cwt $3,010 943 lb $324.00/cwt $3,055 962 lb $320.25/cwt $3,081
Heifers included 750-pound cattle at $337, 835-pound heifers at $323.50, and 911-pound heifers at $308.50.
The per-head numbers deserve attention. Once steers get into the 900-pound neighborhood, several of these sales crossed $3,000 per head.
That’s a lot of value walking through a sale ring.
And unlike comparisons assembled from individual lots, Winter gave us the market direction directly: $10–$15 higher on feeders.
La Junta Was Strong a Day Earlier
The move wasn’t confined to Kansas.
Winter Livestock at La Junta sold 1,630 head Tuesday, September 15, with several classes considerably stronger than examples from its September 8 sale.
Steer calves included:
- 335 lb at $571/cwt
- 400 lb at $514
- 540 lb at $427
Stocker steers included:
- 545 lb at $395
- 610 lb at $375
- 720 lb at $352
- 830 lb at $337
The 830-pound steer pencils to roughly $2,797 per head.
The heifer side was strong as well. A 530-pound heifer calf brought $414, while stocker heifers included 550 pounds at $372.50, 655 at $340.50 and 710 at $324.
Individual lots from one week to another aren’t necessarily identical cattle, so they shouldn’t be treated as a formal market comparison. But the direction across several comparable weights was difficult to ignore.
Then Dodge City supplied the confirmation the following day.
Beaver Has Held Together Through September
Beaver Livestock in Oklahoma gives us another useful checkpoint because we’ve followed the market there throughout the month.
On September 15, Beaver sold 3,073 head.
Medium and Large No. 1 steers brought:
Weight September 15 500–600 lb $413 600–700 lb $374–399 700–800 lb $340–349 800–900 lb $328–348 900–1,000 lb $314.50–318.75
Compare that with September 2, when 900–1,000 pound steers brought $300.50–315, and September 9, when the reported figure was $318.
Again, cattle and individual lots differ. But Beaver has not shown the continuing deterioration that might have been expected if the late-August break had simply carried forward into September.
Instead, the market has held together, with strength appearing in portions of the offering.
It Wasn’t Just the High Plains
Tuesday’s trade was strong farther east as well.
Kingsville Livestock in Missouri sold 3,190 head, with 600–700 pound steers at $384–418, 700–800 at $355–380, 800–900 at $329.50–358 and 900–1,000 pound steers at $327–339.50.
Ozarks Regional Stockyards moved another 1,561 head, including 500–600 pound steers at $415–440 and 600–700 pound cattle at $375–399.
Riverton, Wyoming, was a much smaller sale at 186 head, but it offered another western checkpoint. Steers included 663 pounds at $362, 769 at $350, 828 at $331 and 950 pounds at $316.
That 950-pound steer works out to $3,002 per head.
No single sale tells us where the national feeder market is headed. Taken together, though, these markets make it increasingly difficult to describe mid-September cash feeders as simply continuing the August decline.
Then the Board Went the Other Way
While sale barns were providing evidence of a stronger physical market, Wednesday’s futures settlements supplied a reminder that this market is nowhere near settled.
Feeder cattle futures closed:
- September: $338.475, down $1.80
- October: $329.650, down $4.20
- November: $323.100, down $5.80
Live cattle were sharply lower as well:
- October: $218.450, down $2.25
- December: $220.200, down $3.15
- February: $220.900, down $3.775
That’s not background noise.
A $4–6 move in deferred feeder contracts matters, particularly when cattlemen are making decisions about calves and feeders that won’t be sold today.
But neither should one ugly session on the board erase what is actually happening in the country.
On the same day that feeder futures broke sharply lower, 2,484 cattle went through Dodge City and the auction called feeder steers and heifers $10–$15 higher.
Those are two pieces of information worth holding in your head at the same time.
Cash and Futures Don’t Have to Agree Every Day
The futures market is trying to price cattle that will change hands in the future. The auction ring is establishing what somebody will pay for cattle standing in front of them today.
Those markets influence one another, but they don’t have to move in lockstep.
Right now, that distinction matters.
The board is warning cattlemen that plenty of uncertainty remains. The cash market is saying that buyers are still willing to put substantial dollars behind actual cattle.
That doesn’t guarantee another leg higher.
It does mean that a cattleman deciding what his calves or feeders are worth shouldn’t use the early-August futures high as his only benchmark—and he shouldn’t assume the late-August break is still the whole story either.
Recent local and regional cash sales deserve a hard look.
These Are Still Expensive Cattle
There is another point that can get lost when everybody starts talking about whether the market is $10 higher or $5 lower.
These cattle are worth a tremendous amount of money.
A 540-pound steer calf at La Junta brought roughly $2,306 per head.
An 830-pound steer there brought about $2,797.
A 906-pound steer at Dodge City brought roughly $3,010.
A 962-pound steer brought about $3,081.
At those values, seemingly small differences matter.
A few pounds of shrink matter. Health matters. Flesh matters. Lot size and uniformity matter. Marketing and timing matter. And when cattle are being gathered, sorted, weaned and shipped, having enough competent help around the corrals matters too.
When a load of cattle represents this much money, a smooth shipping day isn’t just convenient.
So What?
The August correction was real.
What hasn’t materialized—at least so far—is the sustained decline in the physical feeder market that looked possible when futures were sliding toward the end of August.
By early September, cash cattle appeared to be finding their footing. By the middle of the month, several markets were showing firmer prices. On September 16, Dodge City put a number on it: feeder steers and heifers $10–$15 higher.
That doesn’t mean the correction is over for good.
Wednesday’s futures selloff is reason enough not to get comfortable. The board remains volatile, and cattlemen with sales farther down the road are looking at a different set of risks than somebody hauling cattle this week.
But cattle selling now are still commanding serious money, and recent auction results deserve more weight than either memories of the August high or assumptions that one bad futures session tells the whole story.
For now, the cattle in the ring are telling a stronger story than the cattle on the screen.
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Sources: Winter Livestock market reports from Dodge City, Kansas, and La Junta, Colorado; Riverton Livestock Auction; Beaver Livestock; Kingsville Livestock; Ozarks Regional Stockyards; Chicago Mercantile Exchange livestock futures settlements.