CHICAGO, March 20 (Reuters) - Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) lean hog futures closed lower on Wednesday for a second straight session, consolidating below a life-of-contract high set in the most-active June contract earlier this week, traders said.
CME June hogs settled down 0.625 cent at 100.625 cents per pound, two days after posting a contract high at 103.475 cents. Front-month April hogs fell 0.525 cent to finish at 85.300 cents per pound.
Softening packer margins weighed on values while wholesale pork prices declined. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) priced the pork carcass cutout late Wednesday at $92.18 per hundredweight (cwt), down $1.19 from Tuesday.
Estimated profit margins for pork processors fell to $13.40 per hog, Denver-based livestock marketing advisory service HedgersEdge.com LLC said, down from $16.20 a day ago and $20.55 a week ago.
CME live cattle futures also closed lower in subdued trade as brokers marked time ahead of monthly U.S. feedlot data due from the USDA on Friday.
CME April live cattle futures settled down 0.250 cent at 187.800 cents per pound. Most-active June cattle fell 0.225 cent to end at 184.775 cents, turning lower after a climb to 185.575 cents, its highest in a week.
CME April feeder cattle ended down 0.150 cent at 254.925 cents per pound and May feeders fell 0.125 cent to settle at 258.800 cents.
Ahead of the USDA's monthly Cattle on Feed report on Friday, analysts surveyed by Reuters on average estimated the number of cattle placed into U.S. feedlots during February at 1.849 million head, up 6.4% from the same month a year ago.
Traders noted that U.S. equity markets rose after the CME's closing bell, a factor that could buoy lift livestock markets on Thursday. Wall Street's main stock indexes advanced after the Federal Reserve eased investor jitters by keeping borrowing costs unchanged and reinforcing expectations that rates could be cut as many as three times this year.
(Reporting by Julie Ingwersen; Editing by Ravi Prakash Kumar)
