DAILY CATTLE MARKET BRIEFING
June 18, 2026
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1. MARKET SENTIMENT: MODERATELY BULLISH — Score: 6.5/10
Cattle futures posted back-to-back gains Monday and Tuesday, supported by firm cash prices, a cash-to-futures premium that made futures appear undervalued, and a boost from Wall Street optimism following a preliminary US-Iran ceasefire deal. Packer margins remain deeply negative (estimated loss of $227.75 per head Tuesday vs. $251.90 the prior week), which continues to suppress slaughter volumes and tighten fed cattle availability. Cattle owners retain leverage in this environment, though high retail beef prices and cautious consumer spending introduce demand-side risk heading into summer.
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2. KEY PRICE TRENDS
CASH CATTLE: Last week's trade settled at $255–$256/cwt live and $405–$407/cwt dressed, steady to down $3 live and steady to down $2 dressed from the prior week. Cash prices continue to carry a meaningful premium over futures.
FUTURES: CME August live cattle closed Tuesday at $249.200/cwt, up $5.950 on the day. August feeder cattle closed at $366.875/cwt, up $5.325. June live cattle settled at $255.300, up $4.675. Feeder cattle futures are up more than $9.00 over the past two trading sessions.
BOX BEEF: Choice cutout priced at $399.91/cwt Tuesday morning, up $4.86 from Monday. Select cutout at $377.99/cwt, up $1.58. The Choice/Select spread has widened significantly, with Select declining sharply over the past five to seven trading sessions — a more seasonally normal pattern.
RETAIL: May 2026 fresh beef prices averaged up 7.4% year-over-year. Ground beef hit $6.75/lb (up 12.8% YOY) and all-beef steaks averaged $12.80/lb (up 16% YOY). Fresh meat dollar sales rose 4.2% in May, but pound volume was essentially flat at -0.2%, signaling consumers are buying less at higher prices.
FEEDER MARKETS: Oklahoma City reported feeder steers $2.00–$10.00 higher, with 600-lb. weights up as much as $20.00. Weaned calves were $20.00 higher. OKC West saw steer calves $10.00–$20.00 higher and heifer calves $5.00–$15.00 higher. Demand described as good.
SLAUGHTER: Weekly slaughter of 524,000 head — 9,000 under the prior week and 36,000 under last year. One of the lowest non-holiday weekly slaughter totals in recent memory.
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3. TOP 3 NEW DEVELOPMENTS
DEVELOPMENT 1: NEW WORLD SCREWWORM EXPANDS TO 12 CONFIRMED US CASES
As of Monday, 12 confirmed NWS cases have been identified in the US — seven in cattle, three in goats, one in a dog, and one in a sheep. Eleven cases are in south-central Texas counties; one is in southeast New Mexico. Canada has banned livestock imports from Texas. Mexico has banned live animal imports from the US (largely a political statement, with minimal cattle industry impact). No restrictions have been placed on US beef movement. USDA has launched a 5-Prong Strategy for domestic readiness and response. While futures initially spiked on the news then sold off sharply, the market has since recovered. Critically, no consumer food safety concerns have emerged, and no headlines are pushing consumers away from beef. Historically, the 1960s eradication program provides a roadmap — Texas was the epicenter then as well, and the program ultimately succeeded, though it required years of coordinated effort.
DEVELOPMENT 2: USMCA TRADE TALKS RESUME WITH AGRICULTURE AT STAKE
US and Mexican negotiators met in Washington this week for a second round of USMCA talks covering agriculture and energy. Canada and Mexico represent more than $58.6 billion in US farm exports — over a third of all US agricultural exports globally. President Trump has publicly stated he is "not looking to renew" USMCA, though trade experts view this as a negotiating posture. A July 1 deadline will likely start a 10-year termination clock rather than produce a finalized deal. A third round of talks is scheduled for the week of July 20 in Mexico City. Agricultural groups warn that USMCA failure would be "catastrophic" for US agriculture. For cattle specifically, the ongoing Mexican border closure for live cattle (due to NWS) means more Mexican cattle are being finished domestically, which is reshaping regional beef trade flows and may reduce Mexican beef imports from the US while increasing Mexican beef exports.
DEVELOPMENT 3: JBS CLOSES SOUDERTON, PA PLANT — MORE PACKER CONSOLIDATION LIKELY
JBS announced the closure of its Souderton, Pennsylvania beef plant (approximately 2,000 head per day capacity) and a small value-added meat packaging facility in Memphis. While the direct industry impact is limited, this signals that packer margin pressure — currently running losses near $228/head — is forcing efficiency evaluations across the board. Analysts expect additional facility closures or consolidations as the industry adapts to structurally tighter cattle supplies. Regionally, eastern US cull cattle and long-haul Midwest cattle will need to be redirected to other JBS facilities.
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4. OUTLOOK: WHAT RANCHERS SHOULD EXPECT
FED CATTLE AND PACKERS: Tight fed cattle inventories give sellers continued leverage in the near term. Smaller feeding company occupancy levels and reduced committed cattle pools mean packers will need to be more aggressive in cash purchases this week. Expect cash bids to firm. However, packer losses near $228/head are unsustainable, and continued low slaughter volumes reflect their reluctance to buy cattle at a loss. Box prices are moving higher ahead of Father's Day and summer grilling season, which should help narrow packer margins modestly.
FEEDER AND STOCKER MARKETS: Feeder markets are strong and gaining momentum. Recent rains across Oklahoma and other key grazing states are improving pasture conditions and supporting grazing demand. The national feeder and stocker marketings for the week ending June 6 were 24.4% below the 3-year average — a stark reminder of structural tightness in cattle supply. Placement pace may slow further in June due to improved grass conditions. Ranchers with calves to sell are in a favorable position.
TRADE AND POLICY RISKS: USMCA uncertainty is the largest medium-term policy risk for the cattle industry. A deal collapse would disrupt beef export flows to Mexico and Canada — two of the top markets for US beef. Monitor the July 1 deadline closely. The NWS situation bears watching but has not yet created meaningful market disruption beyond the initial futures volatility.
WEATHER AND INPUTS: Australia's Bureau of Meteorology has warned of a potentially strong to very strong El Nino developing in the second half of 2026, which could bring drier conditions to key beef-producing regions globally and tighten international supply. Domestically, pasture and range conditions remain well below last year (32% good-to-excellent vs. 46% a year ago), though recent rains are providing some relief. Corn crop conditions are 68% good-to-excellent — slightly above last week but below last year — keeping feed cost pressures manageable for now.
BOTTOM LINE FOR RANCHERS: Cattle owners hold the cards in the short run. Tight supplies, recovering box prices, strong feeder demand, and improving pasture conditions all point in a favorable direction. The primary risks are policy-driven — USMCA negotiations and NWS containment — rather than fundamental supply-demand concerns. Producers with cattle to sell should remain engaged with the market and consider current price levels in the context of historically elevated values.
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June 18, 2026
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
1. MARKET SENTIMENT: MODERATELY BULLISH — Score: 6.5/10
Cattle futures posted back-to-back gains Monday and Tuesday, supported by firm cash prices, a cash-to-futures premium that made futures appear undervalued, and a boost from Wall Street optimism following a preliminary US-Iran ceasefire deal. Packer margins remain deeply negative (estimated loss of $227.75 per head Tuesday vs. $251.90 the prior week), which continues to suppress slaughter volumes and tighten fed cattle availability. Cattle owners retain leverage in this environment, though high retail beef prices and cautious consumer spending introduce demand-side risk heading into summer.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
2. KEY PRICE TRENDS
CASH CATTLE: Last week's trade settled at $255–$256/cwt live and $405–$407/cwt dressed, steady to down $3 live and steady to down $2 dressed from the prior week. Cash prices continue to carry a meaningful premium over futures.
FUTURES: CME August live cattle closed Tuesday at $249.200/cwt, up $5.950 on the day. August feeder cattle closed at $366.875/cwt, up $5.325. June live cattle settled at $255.300, up $4.675. Feeder cattle futures are up more than $9.00 over the past two trading sessions.
BOX BEEF: Choice cutout priced at $399.91/cwt Tuesday morning, up $4.86 from Monday. Select cutout at $377.99/cwt, up $1.58. The Choice/Select spread has widened significantly, with Select declining sharply over the past five to seven trading sessions — a more seasonally normal pattern.
RETAIL: May 2026 fresh beef prices averaged up 7.4% year-over-year. Ground beef hit $6.75/lb (up 12.8% YOY) and all-beef steaks averaged $12.80/lb (up 16% YOY). Fresh meat dollar sales rose 4.2% in May, but pound volume was essentially flat at -0.2%, signaling consumers are buying less at higher prices.
FEEDER MARKETS: Oklahoma City reported feeder steers $2.00–$10.00 higher, with 600-lb. weights up as much as $20.00. Weaned calves were $20.00 higher. OKC West saw steer calves $10.00–$20.00 higher and heifer calves $5.00–$15.00 higher. Demand described as good.
SLAUGHTER: Weekly slaughter of 524,000 head — 9,000 under the prior week and 36,000 under last year. One of the lowest non-holiday weekly slaughter totals in recent memory.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
3. TOP 3 NEW DEVELOPMENTS
DEVELOPMENT 1: NEW WORLD SCREWWORM EXPANDS TO 12 CONFIRMED US CASES
As of Monday, 12 confirmed NWS cases have been identified in the US — seven in cattle, three in goats, one in a dog, and one in a sheep. Eleven cases are in south-central Texas counties; one is in southeast New Mexico. Canada has banned livestock imports from Texas. Mexico has banned live animal imports from the US (largely a political statement, with minimal cattle industry impact). No restrictions have been placed on US beef movement. USDA has launched a 5-Prong Strategy for domestic readiness and response. While futures initially spiked on the news then sold off sharply, the market has since recovered. Critically, no consumer food safety concerns have emerged, and no headlines are pushing consumers away from beef. Historically, the 1960s eradication program provides a roadmap — Texas was the epicenter then as well, and the program ultimately succeeded, though it required years of coordinated effort.
DEVELOPMENT 2: USMCA TRADE TALKS RESUME WITH AGRICULTURE AT STAKE
US and Mexican negotiators met in Washington this week for a second round of USMCA talks covering agriculture and energy. Canada and Mexico represent more than $58.6 billion in US farm exports — over a third of all US agricultural exports globally. President Trump has publicly stated he is "not looking to renew" USMCA, though trade experts view this as a negotiating posture. A July 1 deadline will likely start a 10-year termination clock rather than produce a finalized deal. A third round of talks is scheduled for the week of July 20 in Mexico City. Agricultural groups warn that USMCA failure would be "catastrophic" for US agriculture. For cattle specifically, the ongoing Mexican border closure for live cattle (due to NWS) means more Mexican cattle are being finished domestically, which is reshaping regional beef trade flows and may reduce Mexican beef imports from the US while increasing Mexican beef exports.
DEVELOPMENT 3: JBS CLOSES SOUDERTON, PA PLANT — MORE PACKER CONSOLIDATION LIKELY
JBS announced the closure of its Souderton, Pennsylvania beef plant (approximately 2,000 head per day capacity) and a small value-added meat packaging facility in Memphis. While the direct industry impact is limited, this signals that packer margin pressure — currently running losses near $228/head — is forcing efficiency evaluations across the board. Analysts expect additional facility closures or consolidations as the industry adapts to structurally tighter cattle supplies. Regionally, eastern US cull cattle and long-haul Midwest cattle will need to be redirected to other JBS facilities.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
4. OUTLOOK: WHAT RANCHERS SHOULD EXPECT
FED CATTLE AND PACKERS: Tight fed cattle inventories give sellers continued leverage in the near term. Smaller feeding company occupancy levels and reduced committed cattle pools mean packers will need to be more aggressive in cash purchases this week. Expect cash bids to firm. However, packer losses near $228/head are unsustainable, and continued low slaughter volumes reflect their reluctance to buy cattle at a loss. Box prices are moving higher ahead of Father's Day and summer grilling season, which should help narrow packer margins modestly.
FEEDER AND STOCKER MARKETS: Feeder markets are strong and gaining momentum. Recent rains across Oklahoma and other key grazing states are improving pasture conditions and supporting grazing demand. The national feeder and stocker marketings for the week ending June 6 were 24.4% below the 3-year average — a stark reminder of structural tightness in cattle supply. Placement pace may slow further in June due to improved grass conditions. Ranchers with calves to sell are in a favorable position.
TRADE AND POLICY RISKS: USMCA uncertainty is the largest medium-term policy risk for the cattle industry. A deal collapse would disrupt beef export flows to Mexico and Canada — two of the top markets for US beef. Monitor the July 1 deadline closely. The NWS situation bears watching but has not yet created meaningful market disruption beyond the initial futures volatility.
WEATHER AND INPUTS: Australia's Bureau of Meteorology has warned of a potentially strong to very strong El Nino developing in the second half of 2026, which could bring drier conditions to key beef-producing regions globally and tighten international supply. Domestically, pasture and range conditions remain well below last year (32% good-to-excellent vs. 46% a year ago), though recent rains are providing some relief. Corn crop conditions are 68% good-to-excellent — slightly above last week but below last year — keeping feed cost pressures manageable for now.
BOTTOM LINE FOR RANCHERS: Cattle owners hold the cards in the short run. Tight supplies, recovering box prices, strong feeder demand, and improving pasture conditions all point in a favorable direction. The primary risks are policy-driven — USMCA negotiations and NWS containment — rather than fundamental supply-demand concerns. Producers with cattle to sell should remain engaged with the market and consider current price levels in the context of historically elevated values.
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For more detailed information or specific market data, please contact your local extension office or market analyst.