11/25/2025 Market Commentary

Live Cattle: Live Cattle futures began the week locked limit lower after Tyson Foods announced that they will be closing their Lexington, NE beef processing facility along with reducing a shift at the Amarillo, TX plant. Some of the deferred contracts did trade for a while yesterday morning before trading down the limit and staying at that level the remainder of the day. Today, the futures opened lower and made another attempt to break lower mid-morning before finishing mixed. The deferred contracts saw sizable gains while the front months finished slightly lower. The optimism in the deferred contracts comes on the hope that by next summer and beyond, the industry will have figured out where fat cattle will be headed to be killed and what the weekly slaughter totals will be. The nearby contracts are seeing pressure due to the unknown of getting cattle slaughtered and how many cattle the packers plan to process in a week during the next three months. Boxed beef remains stable and was quoted higher this morning. Choice was up $1.56 at $372.05 and select was $3.46 higher at $358.97 on this morning’s report. There were a few cattle traded in the North today at 208 live and 330 dressed while the South trade a few at 215 this afternoon. Overall, the cattle complex continues to trade the negative news that is hitting the market and this week’s thin holiday trade is adding to the volatility. Today’s release of the CFTC Report was data as of October 14, two days before futures topped. The managed money were buyers of 7,740 Live Cattle contracts that week, bringing their net long position to 123,754 contracts.

Feeder Cattle: Feeder Cattle futures started the day lower before trading as much as 6.500 higher in some of the deferred months. The nearby Feeder Cattle futures began the week locked down the limit and never traded yesterday. Currently, there is a $24.90 difference in the nearby January contract and the current CME Feeder Cattle index. The current index is at $331.97 after Monday’s sales. It is interesting to note that put option premiums decreased much more than the futures gained today. Most of this is due to the inability to trade the futures on Monday as they were locked down the limit and traders had no way to short the market other than buying puts. When the futures did not open limit lower today, many were able to get out of those puts and use the futures to get protection towards a down market. Open interest decreased 3,613 contracts yesterday and is now down to 67,777 contracts. Open interest had been recovering over the past few weeks, but more negative news at the end of last week pushed traders back to the sidelines.

Lean Hogs: Lean Hogs have had positive gains both days this week with the exception of the February contract which finished with a small loss today. With 11 trading days left for the December contract, it is at a discount of $5.16 to the Lean Hog index which is currently at $83.61. The pork cutout continues to trade in the lower $90 range while the national cash price has fallen to $70.64.  Hog carcass weights were 217 pounds this week which is 1 pound heavier than last week. Slaughter for last week was 98,000 head less than the prior week at 2,603,000 head, which now puts total YTD slaughter 2,000,000 head behind 2024. As we come into the holiday season, it’s looking like hog weights will continue to rise as the number of available hogs will continue to be on the rise.

Corn: Corn futures finished higher today after a four day slide that took out many support areas. After posting a high on November 14, the March contract has lost over 20 cents and has held at the 100-day MA the last three trading sessions. Options for the December contract expired last Friday and first notice day is this Friday pushing the bulk of the open interest to the March contract. Export sales reports continue to be released as the USDA tries to catch up to current sales. For the week ending October 9, the U.S. sold 52.2 million bushels of corn which kept the U.S. nearly 250 million bushels ahead of the pace needed to meet the record export goal that the USDA has set. This week was the last Crop Progress Report from the USDA for the year. Corn and Soybean harvest is essentially complete. The winter wheat crop is rated at 45% good to excellent, which is 10% below a year ago: something to keep in mind for the corn market as we go through the winter months.