Today the Big Boys at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, who can corner the cattle futures market on a whim, did it again today, driving cattle futures down, and cash fed cattle with it.
Fed cattle at the feedlots stalled out at $100, even with last week, and packers quickly lowered their bids to $98-$99, to end trading for the week. Cattle are in short supply and prices are headed higher--what to do?
Call an all-commodities melt down, dragging down cattle wth it. That's what the Merc did, to generate trading commissions and preserve the precious volatiity that keeps them coming.
There was no available reason for cash cattle to drop, so one had to be manufactured at the Merc, where actual living breathing cattle aren't traded, only paper contracts. The Big 3 packers and a few large scale feeder allies took charge, to do on the Merc what they couldn't do at the feedlot, based on short cattle supplies and burgeoning Labor Day holiday weekend demand for fed cattle.
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