Live Cattle Futures PricesWednesday, May 23rd, 2012

Cattle futures are called 40 to 60 cents lower on the bearish Cold Storage report. Wholesale beef prices closed mixed Tuesday. Choice was down $0.31 and Select was up $0.57 leaving the spread at $7.24. Estimated Tuesday slaughter was 126,000 head, same as last week and down 4,000 head from a year ago. The cattle crush spreads improved but are still way below break even. The afternoon Cold Storage report showed total beef supplies at 517,528,000 pounds, up significantly from a year ago when April supplies were at 443,151,000 pounds. Frozen beef supplies are at the highest level seen the last 12 years despite smaller production in 2012 to date. Beef and veal exports for the first three months of 2012 (official census data) totaled 558.4 million pounds down from last year’s 633.27 million pounds.