The Eastern Young Cattle Indicator stands
at 538¢/kg, and felt perhaps the most downward pressure this week, losing
nearly 6% from the previous week, but at 95¢/kg higher than four weeks ago, was
still offering positive results. The store sale at Roma, Queensland, accounted
for a quarter of the EYCI throughput and traded at nearly 50¢/kg above the
average. Feeders were out in force this week it would seem, taking more than
half of all EYCI stock, but only averaging 535¢/kg, while restockers were
paying 564¢/kg.
The national feeder steer indicator lost
20¢/kg for the week to land at 285¢/kg, with buyers at Roma paying a
significant premium to the average (311¢/kg), but the largest yardings at Wagga
Wagga and Carcoar, NSW ended up sitting at about the indicator mark.
Heavy steers only lost about 13¢/kg, with
the national price ending the week at 250¢/kg. Roma restockers also boosted the
yearling steer price, with 30% of the cattle eligible for that indicator which
also dropped slightly to 310¢/kg, coming from there where the price was 30¢/kg
above the average.
Yardings dropped by nearly 20,000 head this
week after the huge surge the week prior which was the biggest cattle yarding
in four years. This week’s yardings were still more than double the same week
in 2022, and 45% higher than the average yarding for the past two years. The
drop back down predominantly came from Queensland yards, which had increased by
80% the prior week. We are yet to see what that bumper yarding did to slaughter
figures this week, but last week’s slaughter fell for the third consecutive
week, down by about 3000 head. At 120,887 head though, this was still nearly
13% higher year-on-year for the week.
Yardings surge for finals weeks of 2023
Next week
Despite losing most of last week’s gains, cattle prices across the board showed plenty of resilience given the absolute onslaught of stock that has hit the market in the past fortnight. This will likely mean that cattle could keep coming out of the woodwork for those sales that are operating next week, and the prominence of feeder and restocker buyers over processors will keep supporting prices at close to current levels. What the weather does over the next three weeks, and how the weaner sales open up the 2024 trading year will be watched with keen interest.
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Click on graph to expand
Data sources: MLA, Mecardo
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