Last week's trade was phenomenal, as the market was blessed to receive not only trader buy-in and support from the week's start, but was complemented late in the week by the fed cash cattle market's impressive rally as well.

To be more specific, here were some of the highlights of last week's trade. For starters, the gains seen throughout the futures complex were aggressive as traders didn't squander any opportunity in last week's market. Throughout the week, August live cattle closed up $8.15, October live cattle jumped $8.80, August feeder cattle leapt $15.83 higher and September feeder cattle jumped $16.03 throughout the week. And, despite the fact that boxed beef prices traded lower as they often do seasonally in the third quarter, the fed cash cattle market was still able to rally.

Feedlot managers are keenly aware of the market's environment and were willing to collectively work together to advance the market, even though historically the middle of July is a time in which fed cash cattle prices typically trade lower. But throughout the week, Northern dressed cattle traded at $380, which is $10 higher than the previous week's weighted average. Southern live cattle traded at $228 to $230, which is $4 to $6 higher than the previous week's weighted average.

The reason why packers ended up paying more money in last week's fed cash cattle market is because they were shorter bought than most assumed. With multiple weeks ahead of them of uninterrupted kill schedules, they needed more cattle. How aggressive packers will be in this week's market will largely depend on how many cattle they were able to get committed to them. Friday's World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) reports didn't show an uptick in the quarterly steer price projections for the remaining quarters of 2025, and not for the first quarter of 2026. But personally, I don't believe the report anticipated packers being as short bought as they obviously are. Steers are anticipated to average $226 in the third quarter of 2025, $229 in the fourth quarter of 2025 and $227 in the first quarter of 2026.

Thin supplies and strong demand (unlikely anything else ever seen before) have been the main driving force behind both the fed cash cattle market's rally, and the momentum seen in the feeder cattle complex as well. And until one of those factors changes (supply or demand) it's likely the market will remain strong for the unforeseen future.

ShayLe Stewart can be reached at shayle.stewart@dtn.com

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