Cattle production continues to be strong heading into the new week. Inventories are close to full capacity and demand has slowed over the past two weeks. This adds risk to moving new production. Steer prices remain unchanged from Friday’s trading levels. Over the weekend, Branded Cows traded down $1 on both Northern and Southwestern material.

The Jacobsen slaughter forecast for this week is 641,000 head, and if realized, will be 112,200 head more than the same week last year when it was 528,800.

Cattle slaughter finished last week 609,000 head, down 4 percent from a year ago. Over the next six weeks, slaughter is forecasted at an average of 649,300 head, up an average of 1 percent from the prior six weeks and up 34 percent compared to last year.

Figure 1.

…