DAILY CATTLE MARKET BRIEFING
May 12, 2026
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**1. MARKET SENTIMENT: Cautiously Bullish — 6/10**
The fundamental supply picture remains strongly bullish (cattle herd at 75-year lows, slaughter running 34,000 head below year-ago levels), but policy uncertainty around beef import tariffs injected significant volatility this week. Trump's delayed executive orders on beef imports temporarily rattled futures before markets partially recovered. Underlying demand remains solid heading into grilling season, but packer margins deep in the red and import policy uncertainty cap the upside score.
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**2. KEY PRICE TRENDS**
**Fed Cattle (5-Area Weekly Average)**
- Live: $258.52/cwt (week of 5/8) vs. $255.02 prior week — up ~$3.50
- Dressed: $402.50/cwt vs. $399.08 prior week
- Year-ago comparison: Live was $224.80 — current prices run ~$34 above last year
**Regional Cash Trade (Week of 5/11)**
- Texas/Kansas: $256–$258 live
- Northern live: $258–$260; dressed: $400–$405
- Northern sales moved to a slight premium over the South — unusual but likely timing-driven
**Boxed Beef**
- Choice: $389.77/cwt (up slightly week-over-week; year-ago: $345.65)
- Select: $385.01/cwt
- Choice-Select Spread: $1.39 — dramatically compressed vs. $13.77 a year ago, reflecting the dominance of high-quality cattle
**Futures (CME, Monday 5/11 close)**
- June Live Cattle: 249.400¢/lb (recovered from intraday low of 245.475¢)
- August Feeder Cattle: 362.300¢/lb (down 1.925¢; hit intraday low of 357.250¢)
**Feeder Cattle Cash (Week of 5/8)**
- 700–800 lb. Steers: Nebraska $420.18/cwt; Oklahoma $391.27/cwt; Montana $398.49/cwt
- 500–600 lb. Steers: Nebraska $521.06/cwt; Oklahoma $493.29/cwt
**Packer Margins**
- Estimated loss: $265.00/head slaughtered Friday — up sharply from $197.75/head the prior week
**Corn (Omaha):** $4.50/bu — slightly lower week-over-week; corn planting at 57% complete vs. 5-year average of 52%
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**3. TOP 3 NEW DEVELOPMENTS**
**🔴 #1 — Trump Beef Import Executive Orders Delayed (Most Market-Moving)**
The White House announced — then walked back — plans to sign executive orders Monday that would temporarily suspend tariff-rate quotas on beef imports, allowing more volume at lower tariff rates. The orders would also direct SBA lending to ranchers and reduce wolf predation protections. The announcement alone sent CME June live cattle to an intraday low of 245.475¢ before recovering to close up 0.500¢. The delay leaves markets in limbo. Key context: USDA already projects record 2026 beef imports of 5.8 billion pounds, up 25% from 2024. Most imported beef is lean trim for grinding — it competes in hamburger markets, not premium middle meats. Retail beef prices are now 16% above January 2025 levels and up 12.1% year-over-year per the April CPI. Industry experts caution that additional imports are unlikely to meaningfully reduce consumer prices given the structural supply deficit.
**🟡 #2 — Drought Persists; ~60% of Cattle Inventory Under Stress**
The USDA Drought Monitor shows approximately 60% of U.S. cattle inventory located in abnormally dry or drought conditions. Pasture and range conditions rated "Good to Excellent" stand at just 31% — down from 36% a year ago. Drought is simultaneously: (a) slowing herd rebuilding by limiting grazing capacity; (b) tightening hay supplies (Texas hay production was 20% lower year-over-year in 2025); and (c) potentially raising feedlot cost-of-gain if hay and feed prices move higher. The New World screwworm threat in Mexico continues edging northward toward Texas, with the U.S.-Mexico cattle import border expected to remain closed through year-end. NOAA projects some improvement in the South in coming months, but most drought areas are expected to persist.
**🟡 #3 — US-China Agricultural Summit & Global Trade Signals**
A Trump-Xi summit this week may yield agricultural purchase commitments covering corn, sorghum, milling wheat, beef, and poultry — though major new soybean purchases beyond last October's 25 MMT annual commitment are not expected. More than a dozen agribusiness CEOs are traveling with Trump. Separately, Chinese Tianjin beef importers (representing ~40% of China's Brazilian beef purchases) have pledged to pay a 10% premium for deforestation-free certified Brazilian beef — a potential long-term shift in how Brazil's beef is marketed globally. Meanwhile, world food prices hit a 3-year high in April (FAO index: 130.7), with global meat prices at record highs amid tight slaughter-ready cattle supplies in Brazil and the U.S.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
**4. OUTLOOK: What Ranchers Should Expect**
**Near-Term (2–4 weeks):**
- Cash fed cattle prices likely to hold in the $256–$262 range. Packers, bleeding $265/head, have little appetite to bid aggressively, but tight supplies prevent a meaningful pullback.
- Futures will remain volatile and headline-sensitive. Any signing of the beef import executive orders could trigger another sharp intraday sell-off — use caution on unhedged positions.
- Slaughter volumes expected to remain at or below last week's 527,000 head. Box prices need to strengthen before packers expand kills.
- Feeder cattle markets face modest headwinds at OKC and similar sales as futures volatility spills into buyer sentiment, but the underlying supply shortage keeps a floor under prices.
**Medium-Term (Summer 2026):**
- The bull market structural case remains intact. No meaningful heifer retention has begun — herd expansion has not started. Supplies will remain historically tight.
- If drought breaks in July as some forecasters project, fall heifer retention could begin — initially tightening supplies further before eventually building the herd.
- HPAI resurgence in poultry (206+ million birds lost since 2022) continues to redirect some consumer protein demand toward beef, providing demand support.
- Watch the Trump-Xi summit outcome closely. New Chinese commitments to purchase U.S. beef and corn could provide upside to cattle markets.
**Risk Management Note:**
As analyst Dennis Smith highlights, the futures market carries no forward premium (deferred contracts are discounted to front month), making traditional hedging costly. Producers should consider put options or put spreads to protect against a potential top while preserving upside exposure. LRP remains available but can be expensive. The bull market's end will be signaled by aggressive heifer retention — that signal has not yet appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
*Sources: USDA-AMS, CME/Reuters, LMIC, Livestock Marketing Information Center, Beef Magazine, University of Georgia Extension, Oklahoma State University Extension, FAO*
May 12, 2026
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
**1. MARKET SENTIMENT: Cautiously Bullish — 6/10**
The fundamental supply picture remains strongly bullish (cattle herd at 75-year lows, slaughter running 34,000 head below year-ago levels), but policy uncertainty around beef import tariffs injected significant volatility this week. Trump's delayed executive orders on beef imports temporarily rattled futures before markets partially recovered. Underlying demand remains solid heading into grilling season, but packer margins deep in the red and import policy uncertainty cap the upside score.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
**2. KEY PRICE TRENDS**
**Fed Cattle (5-Area Weekly Average)**
- Live: $258.52/cwt (week of 5/8) vs. $255.02 prior week — up ~$3.50
- Dressed: $402.50/cwt vs. $399.08 prior week
- Year-ago comparison: Live was $224.80 — current prices run ~$34 above last year
**Regional Cash Trade (Week of 5/11)**
- Texas/Kansas: $256–$258 live
- Northern live: $258–$260; dressed: $400–$405
- Northern sales moved to a slight premium over the South — unusual but likely timing-driven
**Boxed Beef**
- Choice: $389.77/cwt (up slightly week-over-week; year-ago: $345.65)
- Select: $385.01/cwt
- Choice-Select Spread: $1.39 — dramatically compressed vs. $13.77 a year ago, reflecting the dominance of high-quality cattle
**Futures (CME, Monday 5/11 close)**
- June Live Cattle: 249.400¢/lb (recovered from intraday low of 245.475¢)
- August Feeder Cattle: 362.300¢/lb (down 1.925¢; hit intraday low of 357.250¢)
**Feeder Cattle Cash (Week of 5/8)**
- 700–800 lb. Steers: Nebraska $420.18/cwt; Oklahoma $391.27/cwt; Montana $398.49/cwt
- 500–600 lb. Steers: Nebraska $521.06/cwt; Oklahoma $493.29/cwt
**Packer Margins**
- Estimated loss: $265.00/head slaughtered Friday — up sharply from $197.75/head the prior week
**Corn (Omaha):** $4.50/bu — slightly lower week-over-week; corn planting at 57% complete vs. 5-year average of 52%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
**3. TOP 3 NEW DEVELOPMENTS**
**🔴 #1 — Trump Beef Import Executive Orders Delayed (Most Market-Moving)**
The White House announced — then walked back — plans to sign executive orders Monday that would temporarily suspend tariff-rate quotas on beef imports, allowing more volume at lower tariff rates. The orders would also direct SBA lending to ranchers and reduce wolf predation protections. The announcement alone sent CME June live cattle to an intraday low of 245.475¢ before recovering to close up 0.500¢. The delay leaves markets in limbo. Key context: USDA already projects record 2026 beef imports of 5.8 billion pounds, up 25% from 2024. Most imported beef is lean trim for grinding — it competes in hamburger markets, not premium middle meats. Retail beef prices are now 16% above January 2025 levels and up 12.1% year-over-year per the April CPI. Industry experts caution that additional imports are unlikely to meaningfully reduce consumer prices given the structural supply deficit.
**🟡 #2 — Drought Persists; ~60% of Cattle Inventory Under Stress**
The USDA Drought Monitor shows approximately 60% of U.S. cattle inventory located in abnormally dry or drought conditions. Pasture and range conditions rated "Good to Excellent" stand at just 31% — down from 36% a year ago. Drought is simultaneously: (a) slowing herd rebuilding by limiting grazing capacity; (b) tightening hay supplies (Texas hay production was 20% lower year-over-year in 2025); and (c) potentially raising feedlot cost-of-gain if hay and feed prices move higher. The New World screwworm threat in Mexico continues edging northward toward Texas, with the U.S.-Mexico cattle import border expected to remain closed through year-end. NOAA projects some improvement in the South in coming months, but most drought areas are expected to persist.
**🟡 #3 — US-China Agricultural Summit & Global Trade Signals**
A Trump-Xi summit this week may yield agricultural purchase commitments covering corn, sorghum, milling wheat, beef, and poultry — though major new soybean purchases beyond last October's 25 MMT annual commitment are not expected. More than a dozen agribusiness CEOs are traveling with Trump. Separately, Chinese Tianjin beef importers (representing ~40% of China's Brazilian beef purchases) have pledged to pay a 10% premium for deforestation-free certified Brazilian beef — a potential long-term shift in how Brazil's beef is marketed globally. Meanwhile, world food prices hit a 3-year high in April (FAO index: 130.7), with global meat prices at record highs amid tight slaughter-ready cattle supplies in Brazil and the U.S.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
**4. OUTLOOK: What Ranchers Should Expect**
**Near-Term (2–4 weeks):**
- Cash fed cattle prices likely to hold in the $256–$262 range. Packers, bleeding $265/head, have little appetite to bid aggressively, but tight supplies prevent a meaningful pullback.
- Futures will remain volatile and headline-sensitive. Any signing of the beef import executive orders could trigger another sharp intraday sell-off — use caution on unhedged positions.
- Slaughter volumes expected to remain at or below last week's 527,000 head. Box prices need to strengthen before packers expand kills.
- Feeder cattle markets face modest headwinds at OKC and similar sales as futures volatility spills into buyer sentiment, but the underlying supply shortage keeps a floor under prices.
**Medium-Term (Summer 2026):**
- The bull market structural case remains intact. No meaningful heifer retention has begun — herd expansion has not started. Supplies will remain historically tight.
- If drought breaks in July as some forecasters project, fall heifer retention could begin — initially tightening supplies further before eventually building the herd.
- HPAI resurgence in poultry (206+ million birds lost since 2022) continues to redirect some consumer protein demand toward beef, providing demand support.
- Watch the Trump-Xi summit outcome closely. New Chinese commitments to purchase U.S. beef and corn could provide upside to cattle markets.
**Risk Management Note:**
As analyst Dennis Smith highlights, the futures market carries no forward premium (deferred contracts are discounted to front month), making traditional hedging costly. Producers should consider put options or put spreads to protect against a potential top while preserving upside exposure. LRP remains available but can be expensive. The bull market's end will be signaled by aggressive heifer retention — that signal has not yet appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
*Sources: USDA-AMS, CME/Reuters, LMIC, Livestock Marketing Information Center, Beef Magazine, University of Georgia Extension, Oklahoma State University Extension, FAO*
For more detailed information or specific market data, please contact your local extension office or market analyst.