CME Cattle — Wed 8/26 settle
Oct '26 · lead month
Sep '26 · lead month
CME Feeder Cattle Index 334.27 (−1.19) — dated 8/25; the index resumed publishing after two missing sessions
Quoting stoplight — replacement cost vs Wed 8/19
The tape
Data table
Primal board — Wed 8/26 PM
| Primal | Choice $/cwt | Select $/cwt | vs Wed 8/19 |
|---|
What to tell chefs today
Both grades came off, and Select did the damage: −$6.30 to $362.68 is the largest one-day Select break on our tape, and it hands back Tuesday's tape high in a single session. Choice −$3.40 to $385.13 is now $3.84 under its own 5-day ($388.97) — a fourth straight session beneath it, with the gap widening again after Tuesday narrowed it. The spread went the other way for the first time in five days, +$2.90 to $22.45. And this came on volume: 119 loads against 101, with 69.37 Choice-cut, the heaviest since 8/20. Sellers showed up and buyers took the lower money. That is slippage, not chop.
Rib is the MGM call and it is the one cut that bounced — +$10.06 to $623.19 on the day. Do not read that as a turn: it is still −$23.47 (−3.6%) vs five sessions ago and −$23.47 off the $646.66 high, a REPRICE lower chip for a second day. Rebuild rib quotes off $623 and make that call before the chef does. The bigger giveaways are round and flank. Round −$14.36 to $319.13 in one session is the largest round break we have tracked, and flank $188.88 is a tape low, a first print under $190, and −9.6% in five sessions — the largest move of any direction on our tape. Loin at $472.30 is a REPRICE lower too. And grind broke to a third straight low: fresh 50% $125.90, under Tuesday's $127.88, on 9 trades / 307,536 lb. Every one of these is a call you should be making, not waiting on.
The divergence resolved, and it resolved the way that matters to us. For two sessions the board broke hard while the box rose. Wednesday the board held — Oct LC just −$0.175, Sep FC −$0.275, with Dec LC and Oct FC both higher — and the box came down 3.40 to meet it. Cash firmed slightly: 4,586 head at $218–220 live and $343–350 dressed, and the week's accumulated dressed-steer average now prints $345.24 on 17,567 head — a real sample, not Tuesday's 565. That puts gross box-over-cattle at about $39.89: still very wide, but narrowing from the top, which is exactly how these close. Over all of it, the 300,000-tonne, 90-day tariff-free ground beef authorization from 8/21 stays live — and Purdue's 8/25 read is that it targets lean processing beef and trimmings specifically, not steaks and roasts. The read: beef is coming down to cattle, the discount is showing up in end cuts and grind first, and middles are next. Trend, and now confirmed.
Behind the tape
The 8/21 White House authorization of up to 300,000 metric tons of tariff-free ground beef over 90 days, committed to sell 25% below market, is still working through the tape. Fresh 50% trimmings printed $125.90 Wednesday — a third straight low, under Tuesday's $127.88 — on 9 trades / 307,536 lb. Purdue's 8/25 analysis notes the waiver targets lean processing beef and lean trimmings rather than fresh cuts, and puts the likely retail effect on ground beef well under 1%. The pressure is concentrated where the tape is showing it.
Third vote, and the divergence closed. The board held — Oct LC −$0.175 to $210.775, Sep FC −$0.275 to $319.000, with Dec LC +$0.450 and Oct FC +$0.925 higher — after two sessions of hard breaks that put both leads at tape lows. It was the box that moved this time, −$3.40. The gap between what cattle are worth and what beef is worth has started closing from the beef side, which is the resolution that reaches a rep's quote sheet.
Cash steadied and the sample filled in. WLJ reports 4,586 head Wednesday at $218–220 live and $343–350 dressed. The 5-area accumulated weighted averages now print live steer $218.12 (7,445 hd) and dressed steer $345.24 on 17,567 head — against only 565 head a day earlier, so the level is now settled rather than directional. Formula 21,300 hd at 928 lb / $364.57. Cutout $385.13 against that dressed print is about $39.89 gross box-over-cattle — in from Tuesday's $43.53, and still historically wide.
Wednesday slaughter 105,000 head, 1,000 under the prior week; week-to-date 310,000. Loads rose to 119 from 101, with 69.37 Choice-cut — the heaviest Choice participation since 8/20 — and 19.95 Select. Grinds jumped to 22.07 loads while trimmings loads fell to 7.69. The market traded more beef at lower money on both grades, which is the participation signature of a real break rather than a thin-market wobble.
Quick glossary
Cutout
USDA's daily composite value of a beef carcass, built from reported boxed-beef sales of all the primal cuts — the benchmark for what beef is worth today, in $ per 100 lb.
Choice / Select spread
Choice cutout minus Select cutout. Wide spread = the market is paying up for marbling — the story to sell on Choice and up programs. Narrow spread = trade-down pressure.
Load
One reported truckload (~40,000 lb) of boxed beef. Low load counts = a thin market where a few trades can move the price fast.
Primal
The eight big sections a carcass breaks into (rib, loin, chuck, round, brisket, plate, flank…). Primal values tell you which cuts are driving the cutout.
Replacement cost
What it costs to buy the product again today. When a primal jumps, your next case costs more even if the last one didn't — quotes should reflect replacement, not history.
5-day average
Simple average of the last five trading days' cutout. Today vs the 5-day tells you if a move is a blip or a break.
Cattle on Feed
Monthly USDA count of cattle in large feedlots, plus the month's placements (cattle going in) and marketings (cattle going out). Low placements mean fewer finished cattle three to six months out — supportive for prices later.
Inversion
When a Select primal prints above the Choice one. It means nobody is paying up for grade on that cut — usually a sign the cut is being bought on price, not quality.