By Kirk Maltais
The Agriculture Department's latest Cattle on Feed Report shows a drop of nearly four percentage points in new placements of cattle onto feedlots, which is less than expected by surveyed analysts.
In Friday's monthly report, the USDA reported that placements on feed totaled 1.8 million head during November, which is off 3.7 percentage points from placements in the same month last year.
Total cattle on feed was essentially flat for November, up 10,000 head from the previous year to 11.97 million head. That is slightly more than expected by analysts, a nearly 0.1-point uptick versus analyst forecasts of a drop of 0.1 point.
Fed cattle marketings fell by 1.5 points for the month to 1.73 million head. This is slightly less than expected by analysts, who forecast marketings to drop by 1.9 points.
Live cattle futures on the CME closed trading up 1% to $1.88525 a pound, while lean hog futures finished up 2.8% to 85.95 cents a pound.
To see related data, search "USDA Monthly Cattle on Feed Data" in Dow Jones NewsPlus.
Write to Kirk Maltais at kirk.maltais@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
12-20-24 1606ET