Welcome to Markets Desk, your midday read on what's moving markets and the broader economy.
In the agricultural complex, cattle futures are looking to stabilize after Thursday's correction sent front-month contracts down as much as a dollar eighty-five. Cash trade in the North came in at three forty-eight to three fifty-five dressed, and the Fed Cattle Exchange posted no sales at auction, signaling buyers and sellers are still feeling out the floor heading into the weekend close.
Meanwhile, lean hog futures are bracing for reaction to the latest USDA Hogs and Pigs report, after contracts shed up to a dollar seventeen on Thursday. The national base hog price settled at seventy-eight ninety-five, down seventy cents from the prior session, and the CME Lean Hog Index continued its slide. Traders will be watching whether the report gives bulls any reason to step back in.
Shifting to soybeans, contracts dropped fifteen to seventeen cents as the Trump and Xi meeting produced little in the way of concrete trade news. Markets had been hoping for signals on US-China agricultural demand, and the silence was enough to push prices lower. Open interest rose by nearly five thousand contracts, suggesting traders are positioning rather than exiting.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
