DAILY CATTLE MARKET BRIEFING
July 25, 2026
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1. MARKET SENTIMENT: BEARISH (3.5/10)
The cattle complex remains in correction mode after a brutal three-week, $30 cash retreat from record highs. Live cattle futures hit four-month lows this week ($223-225 range), and feeder cattle touched levels not seen since early June. While Thursday saw modest feeder futures recovery (+2.60 cents) on profit-taking, the underlying tone is fragile. Packer margins have flipped deeply negative (-$255/head Wednesday per HedgersEdge), yet cash cattle keep sliding because seller psychology has cracked. The gap between cash and futures is narrowing—not because futures rallied, but because cash capitulated. This is a market searching for a floor, not showing strength.
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2. KEY PRICE TRENDS
• Cash fed cattle: Mostly $230, a few up to $232, dressed near $365. Live prices ran $8 lower, dressed $10-13 lower this week versus last. Kansas cattle sold on negotiated grid base of $233.
• Futures: August live cattle settled 225.400 Thursday; August feeders 343.775 (bounced off lows). Both remain sharply below levels of three weeks ago.
• Boxed beef: Choice cutout fell to $362.87/cwt, Select to $348.75/cwt—both now under year-ago levels, pressured by rising imports feeding the grind and softening hamburger meat prices.
• Feeder/replacement cattle: Yearlings down $20-40 cwt in spots; OKC reported steers/heifers 15-25 lower, calves 20-30 lower (up to 40 in spots). Heavy "pass" rates and increased P.O.-ing signal seller reluctance to accept new price reality.
• Grain: Corn holding $4.60-4.85/bushel range, soybeans near $12.40—rising feed costs adding another squeeze on feeder economics.
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3. TOP 3 NEW DEVELOPMENTS
1) JULY CATTLE INVENTORY & COF REPORT: USDA's semiannual count shows all cattle/calves at 94.2 million head (up slightly from 94.0M year-ago), but beef cows down 1%. Cattle on feed (1,000+ capacity) totaled 11.4 million head, up 2% from last year — placements down 3%, and June marketings were the LOWEST for that month since the series began in 1996. This confirms tightening fed supplies even as the broader herd shows early, tentative signs of stabilization rather than aggressive rebuilding. The 2026 calf crop is projected down 2% to 32.5 million head.
2) HEAT WAVE COMPOUNDING MARKET STRESS: Triple-digit temperatures across the Plains and Midwest are hitting feedlot performance (especially black-hided cattle) and cratering feeder buyer interest — buyers are reluctant to place cattle into extreme heat, and forecasts show more of the same over the next 10 days. This weather-driven demand pullback is a direct contributor to the feeder cattle price collapse and is expected to persist into early August.
3) SCREWWORM CONTAINMENT ADVANCES: USDA is preparing first outdoor field trials in Panama of "NovoFly," a genetically modified, male-only screwworm fly that could double sterile fly output if successful. This is a longer-term positive for herd health and border-region confidence, but success isn't guaranteed and meaningful population control is still over a year away. In the meantime, screwworm's psychological drag on consumer beef confidence continues.
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4. OUTLOOK
Expect continued choppiness with a bearish bias into early August. Packers hold the leverage right now — losing money on paper but gaining negotiating power as cash keeps eroding faster than boxed beef. Extreme heat will keep suppressing both cattle performance and feeder buyer demand through at least the next 10 days, meaning further softness in replacement markets is likely, especially for lighter, unweaned calves facing 15-40/cwt discounts. Cash fed cattle may find some stabilization near $230 if sellers hold firm, but the inventory and COF data suggest supplies remain fundamentally tight — this should eventually support prices once the psychological panic subsides and demand-side pressure (heat, imports, high retail prices) eases. Ranchers should brace for a volatile few weeks, avoid panic-selling into weak bids where possible, and watch Friday's cold storage data and next week's temperature trends closely as key inflection points. The rebuilding story is real but slow — don't expect a quick snapback to record highs.
July 25, 2026
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
1. MARKET SENTIMENT: BEARISH (3.5/10)
The cattle complex remains in correction mode after a brutal three-week, $30 cash retreat from record highs. Live cattle futures hit four-month lows this week ($223-225 range), and feeder cattle touched levels not seen since early June. While Thursday saw modest feeder futures recovery (+2.60 cents) on profit-taking, the underlying tone is fragile. Packer margins have flipped deeply negative (-$255/head Wednesday per HedgersEdge), yet cash cattle keep sliding because seller psychology has cracked. The gap between cash and futures is narrowing—not because futures rallied, but because cash capitulated. This is a market searching for a floor, not showing strength.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
2. KEY PRICE TRENDS
• Cash fed cattle: Mostly $230, a few up to $232, dressed near $365. Live prices ran $8 lower, dressed $10-13 lower this week versus last. Kansas cattle sold on negotiated grid base of $233.
• Futures: August live cattle settled 225.400 Thursday; August feeders 343.775 (bounced off lows). Both remain sharply below levels of three weeks ago.
• Boxed beef: Choice cutout fell to $362.87/cwt, Select to $348.75/cwt—both now under year-ago levels, pressured by rising imports feeding the grind and softening hamburger meat prices.
• Feeder/replacement cattle: Yearlings down $20-40 cwt in spots; OKC reported steers/heifers 15-25 lower, calves 20-30 lower (up to 40 in spots). Heavy "pass" rates and increased P.O.-ing signal seller reluctance to accept new price reality.
• Grain: Corn holding $4.60-4.85/bushel range, soybeans near $12.40—rising feed costs adding another squeeze on feeder economics.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
3. TOP 3 NEW DEVELOPMENTS
1) JULY CATTLE INVENTORY & COF REPORT: USDA's semiannual count shows all cattle/calves at 94.2 million head (up slightly from 94.0M year-ago), but beef cows down 1%. Cattle on feed (1,000+ capacity) totaled 11.4 million head, up 2% from last year — placements down 3%, and June marketings were the LOWEST for that month since the series began in 1996. This confirms tightening fed supplies even as the broader herd shows early, tentative signs of stabilization rather than aggressive rebuilding. The 2026 calf crop is projected down 2% to 32.5 million head.
2) HEAT WAVE COMPOUNDING MARKET STRESS: Triple-digit temperatures across the Plains and Midwest are hitting feedlot performance (especially black-hided cattle) and cratering feeder buyer interest — buyers are reluctant to place cattle into extreme heat, and forecasts show more of the same over the next 10 days. This weather-driven demand pullback is a direct contributor to the feeder cattle price collapse and is expected to persist into early August.
3) SCREWWORM CONTAINMENT ADVANCES: USDA is preparing first outdoor field trials in Panama of "NovoFly," a genetically modified, male-only screwworm fly that could double sterile fly output if successful. This is a longer-term positive for herd health and border-region confidence, but success isn't guaranteed and meaningful population control is still over a year away. In the meantime, screwworm's psychological drag on consumer beef confidence continues.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
4. OUTLOOK
Expect continued choppiness with a bearish bias into early August. Packers hold the leverage right now — losing money on paper but gaining negotiating power as cash keeps eroding faster than boxed beef. Extreme heat will keep suppressing both cattle performance and feeder buyer demand through at least the next 10 days, meaning further softness in replacement markets is likely, especially for lighter, unweaned calves facing 15-40/cwt discounts. Cash fed cattle may find some stabilization near $230 if sellers hold firm, but the inventory and COF data suggest supplies remain fundamentally tight — this should eventually support prices once the psychological panic subsides and demand-side pressure (heat, imports, high retail prices) eases. Ranchers should brace for a volatile few weeks, avoid panic-selling into weak bids where possible, and watch Friday's cold storage data and next week's temperature trends closely as key inflection points. The rebuilding story is real but slow — don't expect a quick snapback to record highs.
For more detailed information or specific market data, please contact your local extension office or market analyst.