Chicago | Reuters – Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s live and feeder cattle futures ticked up on Friday in a day of abbreviated post-holiday trade.
Feeder cattle futures recovered late in the week from limit-down losses on Monday, rebounding after a string of negative headlines.
CME February live cattle futures LCG26 closed up 4.925 cents at 217.850 cents per pound.
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January feeder cattle futures FCF26 settled up 8.850 cents at 323.975 cents per pound.
In CME’s lean hog market, February futures finished the session down 0.375 cent at 81.000 cents per pound.
Markets were closed on Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday and trading ended early on Friday at 12:05 p.m. CST.
Cattle futures had bounced on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving after a series of negative headlines, analysts said.
Traders were focused on news that China is extending its investigation into beef imports by another two months, giving global suppliers a longer temporary reprieve from potential trade restrictions as the domestic industry battles a supply glut.
Indications of a softening U.S. labor market weighed on cattle futures earlier in the week. In the prior week, President Donald Trump cut the 40 per cent tariffs on Brazilian food products, including beef, that he imposed this summer.
The duties had been slowing down U.S. imports of the supplies used to make hamburger meat from Brazil, the world’s biggest beef exporter.
Beef packers were in the black on Friday, with gains of $94.00 per head, up from $29.95 this time last week.
And on Friday, a Chinese Customs document seen by Reuters showed China has banned pork imports from Barcelona province after Spain detected its first case of African swine fever in three decades in two wild boar found dead in the area.
-Reporting by Renee Hickman
