National cattle yardings lifted about 7000 head, with numbers last week impacted by state specific public holidays. This week’s yarding was about on-par with Meat & Livestock Australia’s three-year rolling average but were 27% lower year-on-year. Slaughter remained historically very high last week, even on the back of a much lower yarding figure, up 11% year-on-year and 40% above the five-year average.
Slaughter has sat above the 160,000 head mark for the past three weeks (of available data), numbers that haven’t been surpassed at this time of year since 2015. In fact, our records show there has only been one weekly slaughter above that since 2015, being in June 2019. Female slaughter remained at just shy of 50% last week.
All national cattle indicators rose between 10¢/kg and 30¢/kg this week, with processor cows seeing the biggest jump to land at 326¢/kg. Dairy cows were up 24¢/kg, while feeder heifers improved 25¢/kg, and restocker heifers 21¢/kg. Heavy steers lifted 17¢/kg this week and remain at the highest premium year-on-year, 27% up, and 23% higher than the five-year average.
Young cattle also responded strongly this week, after reportedly making up much of last month’s mass turnoff, along with cows of course. Having fallen below the 800¢/kg mark to close the week for the first time all year last week, the Eastern Young Cattle Indicator rebounded by 32¢/kg to 808¢/kg on the back of strong results in NSW yards, which averaged 837¢/kg. Queensland had the two biggest yardings of EYCI eligible cattle and sat at 760¢/kg. The National Young Cattle Indicator rose 23¢/kg, again driven by NSW online sales which made up 27% of the numbers and averaged 437¢/kg.
April export figures were down slightly from March, but higher year-on-year, with volumes to China increasing by 37% and the US by 10%. Rabobank has reported Australia reached the half-way point of its China beef quota in late March, meaning it could be completely filled as early as the end of this month. Almost more crucially, Brazil is also likely to fill their Chinese beef quota mid-year, pushing that product into other markets Australia trades in.
Decade high slaughter doesn’t dampen market
Next week
How resilient restocker demand is in the face of a rising market and perhaps slightly lower supply will be interesting to watch this week, as winter weather sets in down south, increasing moisture but slowing growth. Parts of southern and central Queensland have also received some rain, and live cattle export numbers are reported to have lifted in March after a slow start, both of which could provide upside in the north.
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Data sources: MLA, Bloomberg, Mecardo
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