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Cattle market update
25 July 2018
The young cattle market has found relative stability in recent weeks with the EYCI hovering around the 500c/kg mark for the best part of a fortnight. Saleyard throughput has been on the rise driven by an increase in supply of older cattle with EYCI eligible cattle throughput remaining fairly stable during July.
Cow Prices
Cow prices have been the big mover over the last month, the medium cow indicator falling just short of 220c/kg on Tuesday, prices not seen since November last year. This week is also the first time in 2018 that cow prices have exceeded year-ago levels, despite an increase in yardings. Weekly cattle yardings have increased 39% on last month, with 63,206 head yarded last week. During the same period the medium cow indicator has increased 20%.
Exports of Manufacturing Beef
Australia has exported over 190,000 tonnes swt of manufacturing beef in 2018 year-to-June, which is 11% up on year ago levels. Whilst exports to the US are up around 2% it has been other key markets in Asia taking bigger volumes driving this growth with China (+126%), the Philippines (+23%), Japan (+10%) and Indonesia (+51%). Impacted by domestic production in the US, Australia has only sent 37% of its manufacturing beef to the US so far in 2018, whilst this was up over 50% a few years ago.
