Steer prices traded sideways today while Native Bulls fell $2 for packer material. Bids are lower or steady to previous trading levels for jumbo weight steers and cows. Chinese tanneries are almost all shutdown, due to the holiday and COVID-19 outbreak, but are still bidding for material. Korea is still actively bidding with plants scheduled to remain open until February 11^th.

The Jacobsen slaughter forecast for this week is 645,000 head, and if realized, will be 13,700 head more than the same week last year when it was 631,300.

Cattle slaughter finished last week 653,000 head, up 2.4 percent from a year ago. Over the next six weeks, slaughter is forecasted at an average of 636,700 head, up an average of 7.8 percent from the prior six weeks and up less than 1 percent compared to last year.

Figure 1. 

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