Live cattle futures are trading with 50 to 75 cents higher action on Monday. Cash trade settled in late with $235-236 sales in the North and $235 in the South. Feeder cattle futures are posting 80 cent to $1.55 midday gains. The CME Feeder Cattle Index was up another $1.37 to $362.06 on March 19. The weekly OKC feeder cattle auction has an estimated 5,500 head for sale.
Cattle on Feed data from Friday afternoon showed a total of 1.611 million head of feeders placed in lots over 1,000 head during February, a 3.67% increase yr/yr. Marketings totaled 1.522 million head, down 7.8% vs. last year. That took the March 1 on feed inventory to 11.549 million head, a 0.24% drop yr/yr and compares to a 1.86% decline on Feb 1.
