USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) will publish a new Weekly Fed Cattle Comprehensive Report today and revise the National Weekly Direct Slaughter Cattle - Prior Week Slaughter and Contract Purchases Report through the Livestock Mandatory Reporting program.

The cattle industry has seen a significant shift from traditional negotiated transactions to alternative marketing arrangements such as formula pricing. The new Weekly Fed Cattle Comprehensive Report reflects this trend by providing stakeholders a more complete picture of the cattle market in one convenient report. 

The Weekly Fed Cattle Comprehensive Report combines negotiated, formula net, forward contract net, and negotiated grid net purchase information into a single weekly price series.

The report highlights the price differences between beef type and dairy-bred cattle, and price differences between specific purchase types of transactions. Additional report sections provide the percentage of carcasses grading USDA Choice or higher, a quantity percentage breakdown of all purchase types, and a daily head count distribution of formula base purchases. Once published, the Weekly Fed Cattle Comprehensive Report can be found at AMS webpage National Direct Slaughter Cattle Reports.

Also effective July 25, 2017, section “D: BASIS DISTRIBUTION” of the National Weekly Direct Slaughter Cattle - Prior Week Slaughter and Contract Purchases report will be revised. The negotiated cattle delivering beyond 30 days will no longer be represented as forward contracts with a “0.00” basis level, but instead will be identified with a blank basis level (as shown in the example below). This reporting change is in response to industry concerns of differentiating these types of purchases from other transactions. 

D: BASIS DISTRIBUTION

Delivery Mo./Basis Mo.

Jul '17/Aug

3,210 head = (blank will denote negotiated cattle del 31+ days)

432 head = 0.00 (cattle with an actual 0 basis)

123 head = +3.00

If you have any questions, contact Mike Lynch, Livestock, Poultry, and Grain Market News Director, at (202) 720‑4846; or Taylor Cox, Field Chief, at (515) 284-4460. 

Source: USDA AMS