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Royalfan5

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  1. https://www.omaha.com/news/local/fewer-nebraska-voters-turned-up-at-the-polls-but-more-than-usual-voted-in-tuesdays/article_ca4e0646-d57c-5e04-9409-c7902768d579.html#1
     

    So in how Covid-19 effects democracy story. It’s Nebraska’s primary today. Mail in ballots are going to handily except last times total turnout by themselves. (Story says 360k, last update had it up to 391k) The only contested primaries are on the Democratic side in a heavily blue state. (Except state senate with is officially non-partisan). In person voting will wrap up at 8, but the numbers at the end of this should show if two of the electoral votes for Nebraska are in play as Omaha has went blue before, and if Lincoln is in play, Omaha’s probably a lock for blue. 

  2. For your afternoon livestock update, fresh pork declined , and belly values collapsed $50, with packer runs improving again. If the packers improve tomorrow and pork pulls back again it should confirm a high with elevated values likely to remain for awhile. Beef edged higher on choice with select off a bit with more packer improvement. The beef peak is likely very close as well. 

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  3. For your AM livestock update, pork prices edged higher, with bellies off about 10 bucks, with reports of fresh pork being available on the spot market for retailers for the first time in a couple week with plant reopenings going smoothly so far. Choice beef surged higher again, but select was flatter as we see the choice select spread widen, which is too be expected with the packing plant games going on, with Kansas cash sales 15 better than Texas.(Usually they are within a buck of each other) We will see what the packer runs say this afternoon, which is the biggest key right now. 

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  4. Livestock runs continue to improve, cattle are up about 12-15% on the week, and about 78% of normal now, hogs are about 30% ahead week on week, and about 75% of normal as well. We look to be tracking to be back towards 85% of capacity by the end of the week, which should probably get fresh beef and pork trending a little lower in the stores next week assuming the gov't purchase program doesn't screw things up. Milk futures continue to climb as well as the dairy processors have adjusted better/not seen the slow down the packers had, mostly because it's much much less shoulder to shoulder labor. 

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  5. For your AM livestock update, fresh pork stayed just below the highs, bellies are now nearly 5 times the April low, but the other cuts are flattening out pretty good. Beef made a new high on choice values, but select was slightly lower. We are supposed to have 5 pork plants restart today, but we will see when we get the inspections numbers this afternoon. The gov't is supposed to start their food bank buying this week, so the program announced at the lows in values to help producers will end up profiting packers exclusively with buying at the high, while producers still suffer from the lack of capacity. 

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  6. For your afternoon livestock update, cattle runs held steady at 85K, with a slightly smaller Saturday run expected but we made good progress there this week. Unless there is a late surprise today or Monday it looks like the boxed beef high is pretty close to being in. Packers paid up this week, so I think it is a combination of progress in slowing cattle on feed down, and packers wanting to keep good will with feedlots and the DOJ for setting formula prices. (I talked to Bloomberg News about that today, you can look under their ag news later today for more discussion there if you want. Mostly I just want to name drop that Bloomberg uses me as a source)

    Hogs improved more, and had yesterday's run revised higher, pork prices should stay sideways, but the belly run should be easing back soon. Two big plants are supposed to be back next week, which could help a lot. The big question will be how much of a hole this will leave on the backend, which could make things squirrely late in the year. 

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  7. For your afternoon livestock update. Pork values seem to be leveling off as we left the 119 cutout high in place, but its still edging higher. We ran 320K today which is about 20% better than the low, and we are supposed to get Sioux Falls, and Worthington back next week. If we can get that, I think we can be close to 380-400k by the end of next week which probably gets us fairly unfucked on hogs with the culling that's been done. Getting those plants back and the back end fab shops for product end should ease the belly run up as well.

    Cattle wise we the cutout is slowing down, but still edging higher. I'd guess that $470 on choice tops us out if we don't before then. We ran 86K today keeping the 8-10% increase week over week intact, and the packers paid much better money(with the DOJ breathing on them pretty good now) If we can stay on this improvement pace and be running over 92K by middle of next week, we could have cattle close to moving normally at that point. Cattle futures locked limit higher for the second day in a row too, so we are starting to see some confidence there. 

    Barring a huge food service push, I'd guess we will see retail restrictions last through the end of next week, but after that it should be expensive but normal availability until we restock cold storage and such. 

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  8. For your morning livestock update, the run away train in meat values seems to be slowing a bit, with 2-3% gain in pork and beef. I think wholesale values will probably confirm a peak in the next 7 days, but the retail pipeline will remain dodgy for awhile, especially as food service comes back(or doesn't). Expectations are for another improvement in packer runs today so we will see if that confirms, but barring a collapse, production should be up 10-15% on the week. 

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  9. 6 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

    The grocery stores I have been to during this have had their meat departments, the areas where they are cutting meat not the entire meat selling area, closed.  I think Kroger did that nationally.

    I suppose that makes sense, but doesn't help the backlog. I'm guessing when this is over, we will probably see either packers or wholesales invest in more scattered fab space. A empty big box store would probably be ideal for something like this. 

  10. For the afternoon livestock update, cattle runs increased about, with about 15% better runs than a week ago, and getting back towards 70% of capacity, hogs added another 20K to the runs today, so we are about 10% off the low runs there, and had our first day over 300K in a couple weeks. So the production low being in is looking better, and we pushed cattle futures limit higher today, with hogs closing at recent highs as well. The retail pipeline is probably seeing the worst effects right now with the runs from last week hitting, but we should see improvement soon. The biggest problem with the plant capacity right now is not killing the animals, it's processing slowing down because of spacing. If the packers can come up with the cold storage space(spare refrigerated trailers, etc.) they can probably kill two shifts as normal, and add a third fab shift to account for spacing and get us back to normal, or find more retailers with in house meat cutters than can take carcasses and do their own cutting.  

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  11. For your AM livestock report, boxed beef continues to streak higher, now double the values of a month ago, fresh pork is moving good as well, but bellies are carrying the mail there as they approach 200 from the lows at 50 a few weeks ago. Loins and butts showed some weakness. There is also talk of additional gov't aid to keep cattle on a maintenance ration. Still a lot of talk about most of the positive plant workers being asymptomatic, but it doesn't seem like its rapidly restoring the confidence of the labor force even with some gains made.  

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  12. On the livestock front, we pushed cattle runs back to 80K and was up about 10% week on week, hogs were up about 5% week on week, and almost back to 300K run. Hopefully we can be closer to 90K and 325K by the end of the week. It's being noted that there is no spot meat available outside of standing orders right now, with almost no one getting the full standing order on pork and beef anyway. 

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  13. So the Cargill-Beef Plant in Schuyler Nebraska is being idled for two weeks. They’ve yet to have a major outbreak, and had been running ahead, so I think they’re mostly going down to let the outbreak happen and then hit the ground running as it’s over as they’ve got two weeks of normal production built up on site. While they’ve been ordered to stay open by the President, two weeks off, and two weeks on a full steam is probably going to better than 4 weeks half assed 

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  14. So for the afternoon livestock updates. Cattle slaughter runs were down 2K from Friday, but still above Wednesday's low day. Hogs were up 12K from Friday, and both were about 3-5% off last Monday. So the low runs held so far, and the hardest hit Cargill beef plants in Canada were re-opening today with both shifts, so if that is successful, I would think we will see similar things next week in the US, which should put the tightest meat supplies this week, but we are still probably deficit for the bulk of the month of May. 

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  15. 8 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

    So, how long until (if? when?) pricing goes back to normal in the beef/pork markets when the slaughterhouses go back to normal?  Does this stabalize in a hurry?  Or are we 6 months or a year or longer away from getting back to a normalish equalibrium?

    Once we get packers back close to capacity it should back off pretty good. The biggest issue right now is the packer workforce has 0 trust in their employers for the most part, and rebuilding that is going to be a major issue, because you can't replace them with people who know what they are doing in choke points very easily. 

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  16. For your AM Livestock update. Fresh beef prices blew up out the weekend with choice blowing past $400, and we get getting close to doubling values in 4 weeks, with select up higher as well. Fresh pork was a little lower, but that report is a little more noisy so we will see if it stays lower the PM. Lots of talk about how the packing plants being mostly asymptomatic despite the high testing numbers, but we will see if they can reflect that in increased run rates today, and this week. 

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