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Royalfan5

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by Royalfan5

  1. For your morning livestock update, the run away train in meat values seems to be slowing a bit, with 2-3% gain in pork and beef. I think wholesale values will probably confirm a peak in the next 7 days, but the retail pipeline will remain dodgy for awhile, especially as food service comes back(or doesn't). Expectations are for another improvement in packer runs today so we will see if that confirms, but barring a collapse, production should be up 10-15% on the week.
  2. I suppose that makes sense, but doesn't help the backlog. I'm guessing when this is over, we will probably see either packers or wholesales invest in more scattered fab space. A empty big box store would probably be ideal for something like this.
  3. For the afternoon livestock update, cattle runs increased about, with about 15% better runs than a week ago, and getting back towards 70% of capacity, hogs added another 20K to the runs today, so we are about 10% off the low runs there, and had our first day over 300K in a couple weeks. So the production low being in is looking better, and we pushed cattle futures limit higher today, with hogs closing at recent highs as well. The retail pipeline is probably seeing the worst effects right now with the runs from last week hitting, but we should see improvement soon. The biggest problem with the plant capacity right now is not killing the animals, it's processing slowing down because of spacing. If the packers can come up with the cold storage space(spare refrigerated trailers, etc.) they can probably kill two shifts as normal, and add a third fab shift to account for spacing and get us back to normal, or find more retailers with in house meat cutters than can take carcasses and do their own cutting.
  4. For your AM livestock report, boxed beef continues to streak higher, now double the values of a month ago, fresh pork is moving good as well, but bellies are carrying the mail there as they approach 200 from the lows at 50 a few weeks ago. Loins and butts showed some weakness. There is also talk of additional gov't aid to keep cattle on a maintenance ration. Still a lot of talk about most of the positive plant workers being asymptomatic, but it doesn't seem like its rapidly restoring the confidence of the labor force even with some gains made.
  5. On the livestock front, we pushed cattle runs back to 80K and was up about 10% week on week, hogs were up about 5% week on week, and almost back to 300K run. Hopefully we can be closer to 90K and 325K by the end of the week. It's being noted that there is no spot meat available outside of standing orders right now, with almost no one getting the full standing order on pork and beef anyway.
  6. So for your morning livestock update, fresh pork and beef values continue to pick up momentum out of the weekend, select is gaining against choice, some of which is seasonal and some of which indicates that ground beef is getting tighter as ground beef demand jumps with re-opening too.
  7. It was all his roommate, Gary Pinkel's fault.
  8. So the Cargill-Beef Plant in Schuyler Nebraska is being idled for two weeks. They’ve yet to have a major outbreak, and had been running ahead, so I think they’re mostly going down to let the outbreak happen and then hit the ground running as it’s over as they’ve got two weeks of normal production built up on site. While they’ve been ordered to stay open by the President, two weeks off, and two weeks on a full steam is probably going to better than 4 weeks half assed
  9. So for the afternoon livestock updates. Cattle slaughter runs were down 2K from Friday, but still above Wednesday's low day. Hogs were up 12K from Friday, and both were about 3-5% off last Monday. So the low runs held so far, and the hardest hit Cargill beef plants in Canada were re-opening today with both shifts, so if that is successful, I would think we will see similar things next week in the US, which should put the tightest meat supplies this week, but we are still probably deficit for the bulk of the month of May.
  10. Once we get packers back close to capacity it should back off pretty good. The biggest issue right now is the packer workforce has 0 trust in their employers for the most part, and rebuilding that is going to be a major issue, because you can't replace them with people who know what they are doing in choke points very easily.
  11. For your AM Livestock update. Fresh beef prices blew up out the weekend with choice blowing past $400, and we get getting close to doubling values in 4 weeks, with select up higher as well. Fresh pork was a little lower, but that report is a little more noisy so we will see if it stays lower the PM. Lots of talk about how the packing plants being mostly asymptomatic despite the high testing numbers, but we will see if they can reflect that in increased run rates today, and this week.
  12. In Lincoln we’ve went from 115 a day available to 300 a day, and they’re getting through the packing plants now too. It seems like we probably peaked in raw numbers this week too.
  13. Apparently we have folks protesting keeping the Smithfield packing plant in Crete, NE along with talk of a walkout on the Saturday shift. They kept it open on half shifts instead of the two week cleaning and restart hinted at earlier in the week
  14. On the viral load and meat packing plant note, the areas with packing plants with all sorts of folks testing positive aren’t seeing a huge surge in hospitalizations after the first wave. Likely because it’s a generally younger and fit workforce with the older workers in less strenuous roles. The Grand Island area saw a surge at first but it also had nursing home our breaks, which I’m sure tied together because cleaning staff at the nursing homes and the plant labor force overlap at home
  15. When I am on the AM ag radios, I do try to drop a "Good Day" as a signoff from time to time.
  16. For your afternoon livestock report, cattle runs through packing plants were off slightly but still ahead of Wednesday's low with a slightly bigger Saturday run expected, and with bigger cattle production should be past the low point if sustained. Hogs were down slightly from yesterday, but 20K off the low, with a bigger Saturday run expected as well. The Tyson Plant in Dakota City, NE continues to make JBS in Grand Island like they've done a good job with 670 of 4000 workers testing positive in the past week. They are expected to run on Monday after being idle the last two weeks.
  17. So for you AM livestock note, fresh pork values were up another 5% this morning, mostly because bellies went apeshit, they are now more than triple what they were two weeks ago, which was record lows, other cuts are flattening out. Beef values worked a little higher, but they are still about 40% higher than the old record and seem to be flattening a bit. Loads have ticked up so they backed up cattle are closing a little of the gap with heavier carcasses which should mostly find a home as hamburger.
  18. All of Nebraska's a pretty well packing plant tied at this point too. Killing hogs at Worthington will help take some of the pressure off the barns at least, I'd rather they sacrifice the ready hogs than the young ones so we minimize the echo shortage later on. I also should have noted we sold a lot of pork for export to China last week too, so it appears we are going to be pretty committed to cleaning out cold storage the greatest extent possible.
  19. So the packers showed some improvement today, cattle hit 80K for the first time this week, up 10% from yesterday, hogs are up about 22K from yesterday, about 10% better as well. Getting back towards 2/3rd of normal run rates. Still leaves a big hole but if we improve into the weekend the worst may be past there, still probably be hit and miss on certain cuts through to mid to late May.
  20. For your AM livestock report, fresh beef prices slowed their rise but are still moving higher with focus on reports that fast food is trying to secure as much grinding meat as possible, fresh pork is just about to $100 with freezer stocks getting drawn down more by non-traditional buyers. Doesn't seem like a lot of movement on the plant front but I've got guys able to ship steers for the first time in a month to Dodge City so hopefully that's a good sign.
  21. Final livestock note, beef values closed at new highs again, hopefully we are in the blow off phase now. Sounds like retailers are pushing panic buying up the chain there. Pork was higher but is more stable. Sounds like JBS is going to try and bring in a good chunk of cheap grinding beef soon as well
  22. Supposedly they've been doing temperature scans and what not. With the improvement rumored at the JBS plant in Grand Island, we're probably getting to the point within the plant that there's not too many more workers that can catch it.
  23. So livestock slaughter runs continued to decline with cattle down to 72K, and yesterday was revised 4K lower to 72K, and hogs were down 12K to 271K, so we are about to 60% on cattle run rates, and almost 50% on hogs. So no instant impact from the defense production act, it does sound like worker turn out is starting to improve which should start to show some improvement soon.
  24. So for your morning livestock update, fresh pork values were slightly lower with loins dropping off sharply. I'd anticipate the PM report shows gains as the loins looks fluky. Beef prices continued to skyrocket, with choice almost to $350, and showing no signs of a peak yet. I'd guess we will at least test 375 there.
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