The US hide market closed the trading day on Monday July 22 with little to no activity reported, but the July release of the USDA Cattle On Feed report suggested further tight cattle supply is to be expected.

The report showed July 1 feedlot inventory of 11.30 million head, down 2.58% from the month prior. Fastmarkets analysts expect slaughter volumes to underperform through the remainder of July compared with the year prior.

A few sellers discussed how the historically low slaughter figures during the summer of 2024 was helpful in holding hide prices in a narrower trading range over the past few weeks.

A few hide market participants expect trading to increase in the latter half of the week.

Cattle slaughter forecast
Cattle slaughter was forecast by Fastmarkets’ research team at 600,000 head in the week to July 27, up by 2.74% week on week but down by 2.57% year on year.

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