Both live and feeder cattle markets have been in historic long-term uptrends over the past few years.
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Much of this has been due to noncommercial traders building substantial long futures positions, most notably in the thinly traded feeder cattle market.
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What a way to start this US holiday shortened week. Mid-morning Tuesday, a good friend in the cattle industry sent me a simple message that read, “New World Screw Worm has been confirmed by USDA in Missouri”. I did a search of the subject and came up with a single headline, “New World screwworm detected in Missouri; USDA initiates emergency response”. Naturally, my next step was to click to read the story. But there was no story. As of this writing there is no story. Yet here we are, a couple hours remaining in the trading day for the Livestock sector, and both cattle markets are being dragged through the proverbial packing plant. All because a headline triggered computer-driven noncommercial selling.
