The week began with carryover business from late Friday and over the weekend. There are reports of steady demand from the auto sector, with reports of light Heavy Native Steers at $32 and light Butt Branded Steers at $30. A trade to highlight was Colorado Branded Steers trading at $26 for packer material.

The Week’s Slaughter Forecast

The Jacobsen slaughter forecast for this week is 640,000 head, and if realized, will be 2,900 head more than the same week last year when it was 642,900.

Cattle slaughter finished last week 637,000 head, down 1.7 percent from a year ago. Over the next six weeks, slaughter is forecast at an average of 625,000 head, down an average of 1.5 percent from the prior six weeks and down 4.6 percent compared to last year.

Figure 1.

Cured and Wet Blue Export Sales by Selected Countries  —  Through October 1

The International Market

China

A few tanners have returned to work from holiday. October 9^th was the first working day after holiday for everyone.

There wasn’t much change last week for the offering lists from American sellers. A few major American sellers offered more hides this week than last week. The price on most selections remain unchanged or slightly higher than last week.

Some tanners have turned to hides from other countries (namely Central America) as long as the prices are cheaper. After all, many new leather orders do not require medium-high quality hides. Most of the new leather orders are dependent on the leather price only.

Also a few buyers have decided to pay higher price again, but most likely because they want to gamble on the future hides market the rest of this year, not because they really need many hides for the rest of the year. Meanwhile, quite a few buyers have become more cautious about the higher hide prices. Many are afraid that the leather business will fall again by the end of this year, so they might not want to keep building up hide stock at higher price.

**Visit our International Hide & Leather Bulletin to see market news for additional countries across globe.**