5/5/2026 Market Commentary

Live Cattle: Live Cattle futures were led by the deferred contracts today as the nearby June contract is at a premium to the rest of the complex and within reach of the current cash markets. Last week’s cash market was one for the record books as all regions traded any where from $8-12 higher and set new all-time highs. Feedlots will be asking for higher money this week and the basis traders will look to trade a positive basis for the first time in months. In the last four years, the lowest basis in the first two weeks of May was in 2024 with a positive $9.78. Achieving this level looks to be a stretch this week but the lower futures will benefit the feedlots if the cash market can hold steady or trade higher. Boxed beef continues its move higher with both choice and select pushing to new recent highs this morning. Choice was quoted $1.86 higher at $393.42 this morning and select was up $3.91 at $394.51. The choice/select spread is at a negative $1.09 and has spent the last month very close to even levels. Yesterday, Secretary of Ag, Brooke Rollins was behind the podium addressing the investigation into the meatpacking industry. There were no real take aways that felt like any sort of progress or conclusions were found, but it brought beef back into the headlines and put pressure on the cattle complex as a whole. This will not be the last time this is in the headlines, but the market will begin to feel a bit more numb to the issue the more that it is brought up going forward.

Feeder Cattle: After a nearly $17.500/cwt range in the August Feeder Cattle contract last week, the contract opened the week with a $8.525/cwt range on Monday, finishing the day sharply lower. It then opened higher today and pushed to new highs for the week. Last week’s contract highs were set on Friday and are still over $7.000/cwt away from current prices. This week started with carryover from a poor close on Friday along with beef remaining in the headlines with Secretary Rollins speaking about the meatpacking industry. Today’s lower Corn market gave the Feeder Cattle complex some strength as well. The CME Feeder Cattle index continues to be stable and was quoted at $375.33 down $0.21 on the day following Monday’s sales. This breaks a six consecutive day streak of the index being higher. The all-time high for the Feeder Cattle index is $379.09 which was posted on April 16.

Lean Hogs: Lean Hog futures finished the day higher after taking out long term support areas yesterday. The June contract traded below the low from April and then fell through the $100.000 mark and finished the day near its lows for the day. Last week’s announcement of pseudorabies within the U.S. has created some fear about export implications that may come as a result of the cases. So far, there have been no countries that have openly announced they would not take U.S. pork, but the fear of those announcements or a decrease in export demand has caused the market to move lower. While the futures market works lower, the cash markets have pushed to new highs. The national cash average was quoted $1.90 higher yesterday at $94.44 which is $4.20 better than a week ago and the Iowa/southern Minnesota average is currently $3.58 higher than the same time last week. The pork cutout has not included itself in the higher move in the cash fundamentals and is currently at $97.36, down $1.87 on the week and near the lowest levels in the past month.

Corn: New crop Corn futures finished lower today for just the second time in 13 trading sessions. The December contract posted a new high for the move during the overnight session, which has happened eight days in a row now, but reversed lower this morning and settled the day just above the $5 level. Fund buying has been the feature the past few weeks as crude oil has been working higher and inflation concerns continue to bring buyers to the grain complex. Yesterday’s Crop Progress Report showed Corn planting at 38% complete which is 4% higher than the five-year average. Export inspections were released yesterday and showed another week of massive Corn shipments as export demand continues to be strong. Last week’s CFTC Report showed the funds as buyers of over 79,000 contracts for the week ending last Tuesday, increasing their net long position to 264,103 contracts. StoneX currently estimates that the funds were long nearly 300,000 as of the close of trading yesterday.