DAILY CATTLE MARKET BRIEFING
November 3, 2026
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1. MARKET SENTIMENT: CAUTIOUS / NEAR-TERM BEARISH, FUNDAMENTALLY SUPPORTIVE (5 out of 10)
Last week's sharp futures selloff and lower cash trade dominate sentiment. Analysts have no single cause. Cited factors include lender hedging pressure, macro-economic worries (rising oil, a stock market slide tied to AI and data-center spending, fears of more rate hikes, and expected renewed conflict with Iran after the midterms) and election uncertainty. Beef demand, cattle supplies and packer margins remain supportive, and that keeps this from being a clearly bearish read. Cash and futures traders are blaming each other for the drop, and the market is in a "who moved first" standoff.
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2. KEY PRICE TRENDS
Fed Cattle (5-Area, week of 10/30 vs. prior week vs. year ago)
- Live steers: $223.73 vs. $227.08 vs. $230.86
- Dressed steers: $352.19 vs. $360.79 vs. $358.54
- Iowa sellers released cattle at $223-224 on Tuesday. Nebraska traded mid-week at $225 live and $350-355 dressed.
- Live trade was $3-4 lower and dressed $5-10 lower. Some southern sellers accepted $225 bids after live futures fell sharply.
Boxed Beef
- Choice cutout: $368.52 vs. $370.55 prior week and $379.06 a year ago.
- Choice-Select spread narrowed to $13.47 from $14.57 (year ago: $18.74).
- Lean beef is struggling against imports as cow slaughter rises seasonally.
- Weekly slaughter was 543,000 head, 3,000 under the prior week and 14,000 under last year. Boxes appear balanced at 540,000+ head per week.
- Packers have stayed profitable since July, the longest stretch in several years.
Carcass Characteristics
- Carcass weights are 958 lb, up 5 lb on the week and 12 lb above last year.
- Quality grade is 87.4% Choice/Prime, near historic highs.
Feeder Cattle
- 700-800 lb steers: Nebraska $372.75 (down from $378.13), Oklahoma $361.80 (up from $358.89).
- 500-600 lb steers: Nebraska $458.40 (down from $464.86), Oklahoma $437.38 (up from $430.65), Montana $450.25 (up from $426.00).
- Feeder prices are mixed, with the north softer and the south firmer.
Feed
- Omaha corn: $4.26, down from $4.40 the prior week and above $4.05 a year ago.
- Nebraska DDGS: $202.50 per ton.
- Corn harvest was 66% complete as of Oct 25, vs. 60% the previous week.
- USDA's recent yield revision raised the estimate to 181 bu/acre after an irrigated/dryland acreage allocation error in Kansas, Nebraska and one other state.
- Corn basis is near +$1.00 in Guymon, OK (against December futures).
Replacement Market
- October replacement sales were lighter than usual because generous rain and mild weather let producers hold cattle on pasture longer.
- Feeder and stocker marketings for the week ending 10/17 were 11.1% below the 3-year average. The prior week was 20.5% above.
- Stocker operators are shifting to heavier cattle (550-650 lb) because 400 lb calves are scarce, costly and carry more health risk.
- The weaned vs. unweaned calf price spread is widening, so health records and background matter more.
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3. TOP 3 NEW DEVELOPMENTS
A. Futures rout and weaker cash raise short-term price risk
Last week's selloff erased early-week gains that followed a constructive Cattle on Feed report. Packers were short-bought and drew cattle at lower prices, mostly from Iowa sellers. Larger show lists are expected this week after limited packer purchases last week. Analysts warn that futures liquidity cannot easily absorb large sell orders from hedge funds and macro investors. Those flows may be driving prices more than cattle fundamentals.
B. Record-low feedlot placements and marketings point to tight supplies
- The Oct. 1 on-feed inventory was about 11.4 million head, fractionally below last year.
- September placements were 1.78 million head, down 12%, the lowest September since the series began in 1996.
- September marketings were 1.52 million head, down 7%, also a September record low.
- Oklahoma State's Derrell Peel notes placements have averaged about 200,000 head per month below the prior year's pace. On-feed numbers have held up only because cattle are staying on feed longer. The marketing rate hit a record low of 14.0%.
- Steer carcass weights appear to be topping out, up just 7 lb year over year, the smallest gain since February 2024.
- Feedlot "rightsizing" is under way, with smaller yards empty and some closures expected through next year.
- Beef in cold storage on Sept. 30 was down 1% from a year ago.
C. Price reporting and cash market structure under the spotlight
- USDA-AMS began publishing a new regional negotiated fed cattle report on Oct. 26, combining Kansas, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico data already collected under mandatory reporting.
- Cash purchases fell from more than 50% of transactions in 2005 to under 18% in 2025. Kansas negotiated reports have been withheld since mid-August, Texas-Oklahoma-New Mexico since early July, and Colorado since late 2022.
- K-State's Glynn Tonsor cautions that regional aggregation may improve reportability at the cost of information content, and recommends periodic review.
- The policy fight is growing. R-CALF USA is pushing minimum weekly cash purchase mandates per plant. Economist Nevil Speer argues mandates would cost producers through lost efficiency and quality incentives.
- A separate R-CALF commentary warns that Walmart's vertical integration, from genetics to retail, could erode independent bidding.
Also watch:
- New World Screwworm: confirmed U.S. detections rose to 71 from 61 in a week, including the first case in Arizona.
- Drought: conditions improved across the Four Corners and Southern/Central Plains after heavy rain, but worsened in the Lower Mississippi Valley, Tennessee and the lower Midwest.
- Midterm elections today: a Democratic House would likely shift agriculture committee focus toward food and nutrition programs rather than production issues.
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4. OUTLOOK
Near term (this week)
- Packers will likely start in Iowa, where they have found the weakest sellers. Expect bids to hold near last week's $223-225 live and low-$350s dressed unless futures stabilize.
- Larger show lists favor buyers,
November 3, 2026
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
1. MARKET SENTIMENT: CAUTIOUS / NEAR-TERM BEARISH, FUNDAMENTALLY SUPPORTIVE (5 out of 10)
Last week's sharp futures selloff and lower cash trade dominate sentiment. Analysts have no single cause. Cited factors include lender hedging pressure, macro-economic worries (rising oil, a stock market slide tied to AI and data-center spending, fears of more rate hikes, and expected renewed conflict with Iran after the midterms) and election uncertainty. Beef demand, cattle supplies and packer margins remain supportive, and that keeps this from being a clearly bearish read. Cash and futures traders are blaming each other for the drop, and the market is in a "who moved first" standoff.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
2. KEY PRICE TRENDS
Fed Cattle (5-Area, week of 10/30 vs. prior week vs. year ago)
- Live steers: $223.73 vs. $227.08 vs. $230.86
- Dressed steers: $352.19 vs. $360.79 vs. $358.54
- Iowa sellers released cattle at $223-224 on Tuesday. Nebraska traded mid-week at $225 live and $350-355 dressed.
- Live trade was $3-4 lower and dressed $5-10 lower. Some southern sellers accepted $225 bids after live futures fell sharply.
Boxed Beef
- Choice cutout: $368.52 vs. $370.55 prior week and $379.06 a year ago.
- Choice-Select spread narrowed to $13.47 from $14.57 (year ago: $18.74).
- Lean beef is struggling against imports as cow slaughter rises seasonally.
- Weekly slaughter was 543,000 head, 3,000 under the prior week and 14,000 under last year. Boxes appear balanced at 540,000+ head per week.
- Packers have stayed profitable since July, the longest stretch in several years.
Carcass Characteristics
- Carcass weights are 958 lb, up 5 lb on the week and 12 lb above last year.
- Quality grade is 87.4% Choice/Prime, near historic highs.
Feeder Cattle
- 700-800 lb steers: Nebraska $372.75 (down from $378.13), Oklahoma $361.80 (up from $358.89).
- 500-600 lb steers: Nebraska $458.40 (down from $464.86), Oklahoma $437.38 (up from $430.65), Montana $450.25 (up from $426.00).
- Feeder prices are mixed, with the north softer and the south firmer.
Feed
- Omaha corn: $4.26, down from $4.40 the prior week and above $4.05 a year ago.
- Nebraska DDGS: $202.50 per ton.
- Corn harvest was 66% complete as of Oct 25, vs. 60% the previous week.
- USDA's recent yield revision raised the estimate to 181 bu/acre after an irrigated/dryland acreage allocation error in Kansas, Nebraska and one other state.
- Corn basis is near +$1.00 in Guymon, OK (against December futures).
Replacement Market
- October replacement sales were lighter than usual because generous rain and mild weather let producers hold cattle on pasture longer.
- Feeder and stocker marketings for the week ending 10/17 were 11.1% below the 3-year average. The prior week was 20.5% above.
- Stocker operators are shifting to heavier cattle (550-650 lb) because 400 lb calves are scarce, costly and carry more health risk.
- The weaned vs. unweaned calf price spread is widening, so health records and background matter more.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
3. TOP 3 NEW DEVELOPMENTS
A. Futures rout and weaker cash raise short-term price risk
Last week's selloff erased early-week gains that followed a constructive Cattle on Feed report. Packers were short-bought and drew cattle at lower prices, mostly from Iowa sellers. Larger show lists are expected this week after limited packer purchases last week. Analysts warn that futures liquidity cannot easily absorb large sell orders from hedge funds and macro investors. Those flows may be driving prices more than cattle fundamentals.
B. Record-low feedlot placements and marketings point to tight supplies
- The Oct. 1 on-feed inventory was about 11.4 million head, fractionally below last year.
- September placements were 1.78 million head, down 12%, the lowest September since the series began in 1996.
- September marketings were 1.52 million head, down 7%, also a September record low.
- Oklahoma State's Derrell Peel notes placements have averaged about 200,000 head per month below the prior year's pace. On-feed numbers have held up only because cattle are staying on feed longer. The marketing rate hit a record low of 14.0%.
- Steer carcass weights appear to be topping out, up just 7 lb year over year, the smallest gain since February 2024.
- Feedlot "rightsizing" is under way, with smaller yards empty and some closures expected through next year.
- Beef in cold storage on Sept. 30 was down 1% from a year ago.
C. Price reporting and cash market structure under the spotlight
- USDA-AMS began publishing a new regional negotiated fed cattle report on Oct. 26, combining Kansas, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico data already collected under mandatory reporting.
- Cash purchases fell from more than 50% of transactions in 2005 to under 18% in 2025. Kansas negotiated reports have been withheld since mid-August, Texas-Oklahoma-New Mexico since early July, and Colorado since late 2022.
- K-State's Glynn Tonsor cautions that regional aggregation may improve reportability at the cost of information content, and recommends periodic review.
- The policy fight is growing. R-CALF USA is pushing minimum weekly cash purchase mandates per plant. Economist Nevil Speer argues mandates would cost producers through lost efficiency and quality incentives.
- A separate R-CALF commentary warns that Walmart's vertical integration, from genetics to retail, could erode independent bidding.
Also watch:
- New World Screwworm: confirmed U.S. detections rose to 71 from 61 in a week, including the first case in Arizona.
- Drought: conditions improved across the Four Corners and Southern/Central Plains after heavy rain, but worsened in the Lower Mississippi Valley, Tennessee and the lower Midwest.
- Midterm elections today: a Democratic House would likely shift agriculture committee focus toward food and nutrition programs rather than production issues.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
4. OUTLOOK
Near term (this week)
- Packers will likely start in Iowa, where they have found the weakest sellers. Expect bids to hold near last week's $223-225 live and low-$350s dressed unless futures stabilize.
- Larger show lists favor buyers,
For more detailed information or specific market data, please contact your local extension office or market analyst.