Weekly Cattle Market Update: Weather, Feeders & What the CME Index Is Telling Us

This week on the We Live It Podcast, Ty deCordova and Casey Mabry kick off a new Weekly Cattle Market Update format with a timely look at what’s shaping the cattle markets right now.

With winter weather shutting down sale barns across the South, the guys break down how light cash trade is impacting the CME Feeder Cattle Index, January contract settlement, and what that means heading into February. They also unpack last week’s Cattle on Feed report, regional supply differences, grain prices, and why feeder cattle remain historically strong despite choppy day-to-day moves.

Short, practical, and straight from the field. This is a market check you can actually use.

📌 Topics covered:
 • CME Feeder Cattle Index & January settlement
 • Weather disruptions across Texas & Oklahoma
 • Cattle on Feed report takeaways
 • Northern vs. Southern supply differences
 • Grain prices, feed costs & market sensitivity

Have questions or want us to cover a specific topic next week? Drop them in the comments. 

00:00 Introduction & New Weekly Market Update Format
00:50 Denver Trip Recap & Weather Challenges
02:45 Winter Storms Impacting Sale Barns
03:35 Lack of Cash Trade in the South
04:00 How Southern Closures Affect the CME Feeder Cattle Index
05:45 January CME Feeder Cattle Contract Settlement
06:40 Cattle on Feed Report Overview
07:30 Placements, Marketings & What the Numbers Really Mean
09:15 Regional Differences: Northern vs Southern Cattle Supplies
10:10 Market Sensitivity to Slaughter Levels
10:55 Outside Markets: Grains, Feed Costs & Commodities
12:00 Feeder Cattle Strength & Near-Term Outlook
12:45 Upcoming Purebred Sales & Closing Remarks

Creators and Guests

Host

Ty deCordova

Ty DeCordova is a seasoned professional with more than 25 years of experience in cattle marketing. He spent 20 years at Superior Livestock Auction, including his final years managing the Country Page as well as the block during video auctions. This allowed Ty to develop a deep understanding of the cattle industry's operations and build relationships with cattle buyers on a national level. Ty now oversees all operational aspects of the business, ensuring efficiency and excellence across all areas. Ty comes from a family with a long-standing history in the cattle industry. Growing up in Groesbeck, Texas, he and his brother started their own cattle business during their teenage years, purchasing and selling loads of steers. By the age of 17, Ty was actively involved in buying cattle at sale barns for his father, gaining hands-on experience. This early exposure to the sale-barn environment shaped his lifelong passion and expertise in cattle marketing. Ty continues to run cattle today and is committed to serving the agriculture industry.

Guest

Casey Mabry

Casey comes to Blue Reef following over a decade-long career with Cargill. Casey’s career in the industry started as a cattle buyer in Western Nebraska and Wyoming for six years. Casey then moved to Wichita, KS where he worked in boxed beef pricing with a focus on understanding out front prices and position optimization. Casey then took to cattle procurement as a Strategic Supply Manager where he focused on cattle formula and grid marketing arrangements working with Cargill’s largest suppliers. Casey’s experience in cash and value based marketing of cattle can be a valuable asset to your operation. He has a Bachelor’s Degree from Texas Tech University where he served on the Meats Judging team, and a Masters from Tarleton State University where he coached the Meats Judging team. Casey resides in Brock, TX with his wife Deidrea and daughters Reyse, Avery, and Brooklyn.

Producer

Katy Holdener

Katy Holdener's journey in agricultural communications began on her family's row crop farm in California's Central Valley, where she developed a deep appreciation for the industry. After earning a degree in Agricultural Communications and Economics from Oklahoma State University, Katy has been fortunate to work with respected organizations such as the American Hereford Association, American Angus Association, Superior Livestock Auction and BioZyme, Inc. These experiences have provided her with valuable insights into seedstock and commercial livestock marketing. Katy strives to create effective marketing strategies that support the company and its consignors.

What is We Live It | LiveAg's Livestock Marketing Podcast?

Welcome to the "We Live It" ranch and livestock marketing podcast, where cattle market intelligence meets ranch-ready wisdom. Join hosts Ty deCordova with LiveAg and Casey Mabry with Blue Reef Agri-marketing as they bring you straight-talk market analysis, proven strategies, and insights from industry leaders who understand ranching isn't just a business - it's a way of life.
From livestock market trends to cattle management practices, each episode delivers actionable knowledge to help take your ranching operation to the next level. Whether you're in the saddle or in the truck, tune in for conversations that matter to modern cattlemen. Because we don't just talk about the cattle business...we live it.

Speaker 1: 00:03

Welcome to the We Live It podcast here, myself, co host Todd De Cordova with, Casey Mabry. We're gonna try a little something new here, do a kind of a weekly market update or a biweekly market update, just kinda fill this out and see how you guys and gals kinda like it. And if you want to submit some comments in in the different platforms and some questions and something y'all would like to see us cover. We would love to go over stuff like that and just see how this takes off. We're kinda excited about doing this.

Speaker 1: 00:33

We've been talking about doing it for quite a while now. Shoot, for several years, actually, Casey and myself have been talking about doing it. So I guess we'll kind of start talking about your Denver trip. Let's talk about the kids real quick. Y'all had a very good Denver trip.

Speaker 1: 00:51

Your reserve. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 00:54

Reserve breed champion there in the Chester White. So that was pretty good to do that. You know? Yeah. We had I thought we had one that was pretty good, and then kinda chips fell in our favor for that for sure.

Speaker 2: 01:05

So, you know, we were able to go up there, and then this weather looked like it was gonna kinda throw everybody for a loop. And that show was on, what, Tuesday, I think. When did you guys show, Ty?

Speaker 1: 01:16

Y'all showed Tuesday. We showed Wednesday. Yeah. Wednesday.

Speaker 2: 01:20

So And then and then, it looked like the weather was gonna start getting pretty bad, when Friday Friday, Saturday down here in Texas. And so I left Deidra and Avery up there, brought the other two girls, we we, we took off and headed home to kinda lock everything down because, I mean, it got pretty cold here, you know?

Speaker 1: 01:38

Yeah, I was told today that if I was gonna not be home for one of these winter storms to move in, that I'd dang well better have all of our stuff at the barn fixed and ready for the winterize because I didn't get home till Sunday night and, oh yeah, I had pipes busted, I got all kinds of stuff hanging out of the ceilings and she just looks at me like it's my fault, but I'll take that.

Speaker 2: 02:02

Yeah, I'll tell you what, we got down to I think nine degrees or something one night, but I mean, anything below 20 in Texas. I remember whenever I was in college and I went to Beamer, Nebraska on a meat judging trip, and I looked up and I saw temperature on the sign at the bank, and it said it was like 20 degrees. And that was the coldest I think I'd ever seen in my life up until that point. But you get that in North Texas. It's definitely crippling.

Speaker 2: 02:25

Kids that haven't been to school all week, we had you know, I think we probably got three or four inches of snow and ice. Right before that, had some rain, so it definitely kind of slowed everything to a standstill around here. But we lived in Wyoming for five or six years, it'd get down to 15 or 20 below, and you really wouldn't have to do anything. Up here, you gotta like everybody runs to Home Depot like we're about to the world's about to end, you know? And so there's a lot of people out there, you know, getting faucet covers and all kinds of stuff, trying to make sure that their house doesn't have a problem.

Speaker 2: 02:59

But, I mean, we luckily got through there. We haven't had an issue. We've got everything set up as far as for the livestock concerned. Everything's good there.

Speaker 1: 03:07

Drove up there yesterday, and, we cut through Pisture and back up through there, and them roads were still kinda bad. And we went all the way up to Oklahoma, and we'd come back last night late and it was it then froze back again and it was it was pretty, pretty action in some spots. So that being said, we've, as far as the market goes this week down this way, Oklahoma and Texas and and the South down here, most auction barns and markets have been closed for the last week because of the storms. I even think they even like Woodward and them even closed today just because they can't get some of them in some of the rural communities, they just still can't get out of some of that spot. So we haven't seen a whole lot of cash trade this week, which has kind of affected what you on your side of the deal, Casey, so kind of go into explanation on how us not seeing a cash trade in the South affects index and all that stuff.

Speaker 2: 03:59

Yeah, so CME feeder index is an average of the last seven days, and it takes into account the sale barns in all of those areas. And so obviously the Northern markets are bringing a premium, and they historically do bring a premium because of cattle type and different things like that. So normally you get kind of a national average. So what you're going see over the next couple of days is the index is going to drastically move higher. What kind of throws a kink in that is the way that the CME futures market settles.

Speaker 2: 04:29

So the last day for the CME feeder contract for January, if it was in the middle of the month, it probably wouldn't be that big of a deal. But it's January 29 today. Friday's the last day of the month. So you'll see the index post higher. And just out of sheer, lack of numbers in the South, you're gonna see that CME feeder index, post hire.

Speaker 2: 04:51

So anybody that's short the January contract going into expiration, it settles to the index, which is gonna be what tomorrow's prices are gonna be basically off today and today and tomorrow. And so, I've seen some of the preliminary numbers there. CME feeder cattle index right now, sitting like I think at $3.67 or somewhere in that neighbor, the neck of the woods. It's gonna be drastically higher. So it'll be posted up there around $3.70, $3.71, I'm guessing, by the by the time we get to the settle.

Speaker 2: 05:20

So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out, you know, coming right out of the month going into the February. The next contract, obviously, that we've got is the March contract, and it's sitting at $3.65 12. And it looks like it's a steep discount, but it's pretty equivalent to what the market has been. It's pretty flat. So just out of sheer mathematical calculations, you're gonna take that market higher just because you're gonna have basically zeros for the southern market.

Speaker 2: 05:49

You're gonna have big numbers for the northern market. And just from a calculation standpoint, it's gonna post it higher. So like I said, it'll it'll be interesting to see how that plays out over the next couple of days and over the next week or so.

Speaker 1: 06:01

Yep. It do. Cattle on feed report came out, last Friday. Kinda what did that, what did that do to us?

Speaker 2: 06:09

Yeah. I'll post this up on the screen here real quick if I can get to it. So cattle on feed report came out last week, and it was pretty neutral is what I'd say. So a lot of people try to interpret what the on feed report is gonna say. And, you know, they try to interpret it whether it's bullish or bearish based on what the number actually says.

Speaker 2: 06:38

But what you have to wrap your mind around is there's tons of analysts that come out with what that data is gonna look like. And so here, I'm gonna pull this thing up here. I'm struggling with our technology here.

Speaker 1: 06:52

Don't ask me how to do it. There you go.

Speaker 2: 06:57

That looks wicked, doesn't it? So here's our here's what the on feed numbers came out like. So, it came out at, the cattle on feed at 96.8%. So, I mean, you're automatically gonna go, man, we're down 3.2% from where we were a year ago. But what you gotta think about is what the average trade guess was.

Speaker 2: 07:15

The average trade guess was, 96.8. So they were the analysts all kind of pegged that. The range was 96 to 97.6. So just dead on with what most people were expecting. And why that matters to the futures market is that's what the market was anticipating, and so the people that wanted to get bullish or wanted to get bearish, whatever that was, were on both sides of it.

Speaker 2: 07:37

So they're not going to really change their position based on that. So what did come in different, placements come in at 94.6. It was a little bit higher than what most people's guesses were. And then the marketing number came in, which is that's the kill, came in at 101.8, which was a shade higher than what the estimates were. So placements were a miss to the top side.

Speaker 2: 07:57

Marketings were also a miss. So we killed more, but we placed more. And so on feed number comes in basically what most people's expectations were. So it's still showing that we got relatively tight supplies, and we're continuing to do that. The one thing that we got to remind ourselves of is during this month, which this had been the month of December, we got to remind ourselves of what was going on then.

Speaker 2: 08:20

At the November, Tyson made an announcement that they were gonna close the Lexington plant, and that took the market lower. And so cattle prices had kind of plunged artificially on that news. It gave the packer some artificial margin for that time period, and then the packer ramped kills back up. And then obviously what he did whenever he ramped kills back up is he drove the market price of cattle higher through the month of December and in the January. And so that's kind of where we sit today on that market rally.

Speaker 2: 08:48

So those guys the market's very sensitive to slaughter right now, and so that's just that incremental kill that they added during that time period. So if you look at the chart on the bottom left hand side of the screen, the red dot, that's where we're sitting here with just a little bit over 11,400,000 head of cattle. So we got as of 01/01/2026, we're sitting with 11,450,000 head of cattle on feed. When you look at that, we've got a big difference between the northern supplies and the southern supplies. So we're sitting there like, if you look at Nebraska, sitting there with 2,600,000 head of cattle on feed.

Speaker 2: 09:19

That's a 102% of a year ago. You got Iowa sitting with a 105% of a year ago. You got Kansas sitting basically where they had the same numbers as they got a year ago. However, when you look at Texas, Texas is down 9%. So if you're sitting in Texas and you're looking out your backyard, you're seeing lots of empty pens, you're seeing lots of open pens out there.

Speaker 2: 09:40

If you're sitting in the North, man, you're probably saying, hey, there's a lot of cattle up here. So a big divide between those two regions, definitely. But when you average the whole thing out, 3% less cattle than we had a year ago.

Speaker 1: 09:50

Yeah. And, you know, I would reference everybody back to the conversation we had. We released, I think last week, the podcast with Randy Block. That was really, really informal from him on it looks like, the outlook looks like this year, outlook looks like this year and stuff. So that would be a really good one to watch and if you wanted some more insight of the future market.

Speaker 1: 10:11

So Casey, appreciate you. Anything else you want to kind of cover on the market wise? Kind of want to keep these loose. We don't want to bore you guys out there, but we do want you to send in comments and ask questions if you want us to talk about much more though.

Speaker 2: 10:27

Markets have been relatively choppy. I mean, if you're looking at some of the outside factors, we've got lots of things going on, right? Our administration is really driving lots of behavior differences, and so you're starting to see money flow and move into different things. So if you're watching the metals market like gold and silver, those things are going parabolic. Lots of people are talking about currency devaluation and things like that.

Speaker 2: 10:48

How that impacts the commodities markets, we're definitely seeing some impact there. Grains have been soft. And for me, that's something that we gotta really pay attention to. If you're a guy that utilizes grains, which most of us are for feed needs, this is about as cheap as you're gonna be able to buy corn or have been able to buy corn over the last four or five years. They continue to find acres out there.

Speaker 2: 11:12

They continue to find more production on the grain side of things. So we've got a historically wide spread between grains and cattle. So cattle have been the beneficiary of that. Obviously feeder cattle have been that way as well. And so the markets have been really sensitive to that.

Speaker 2: 11:28

As far as cattle go, we've been up one day and down the next. And so we've got a really, really kinda choppy, choppy thing. A buck and a half anymore, you know, we talked about that with Randy, that a buck and a half seems like a lot of money. But really, a percentage standpoint, it's really not that big of a move. So every day it seems like I have to go you know, a customer will call and say, hey, why are we moving a buck and a half?

Speaker 2: 11:51

And that's almost like what 30 to 40¢ used to be. Yeah. Feeder cattle remained extremely strong like we touched on there a minute ago. Once we get the weather out of the way, and it looks like the forecast looks pretty open here for the next ten days or so, we should kind of get back into some normal movement of feeder cattle and also fed cattle across the country.

Speaker 1: 12:13

Good deal. Well, Casey, we appreciate you coming on and us, man, I'm top through this market. A few quick reminders out there. On our purebred side, we're having quite a few purebred sales through the spring here. Coming up, have Durban Creek, it's on February 4, Pauce Angus, which is on February 6, Upstream, which is on February 7, Fawcett, which is on February 10, and then Top Hereford, which is on February 13.

Speaker 1: 12:42

If any of you purebred producers are out there listening, get with our live ad reps and they have marketing packages for you as well to be listed on here. And if you're if you're out there looking for a new platform to to broadcast yourself, reach out to us. We sure would appreciate it. So, Casey, thanks for the market report. Once again, God bless, and we live it.