Forecasts across the country have been focusing on the winter system blanketing the Midwest this week. As everyone waits to see what predictions will be correct - traders at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange are staying on top of the weather too. Tom Leffler of Leffler Commodities in Augusta, Kansas says the livestock markets have had the largest reaction to the weather system:
“That’s basically in the lean hogs, you’re seeing probably more of a concern of getting hogs to slaughter, and the weather having an effect, there.”
On the cattle side of the Mercantile - Leffler says it's about the challenge of just staying warm...
“We’ve seen the temperatures dropping from 70 degrees over the weekend to down 20 degrees now, with snow, and blowing snow coming in over the next 24-36 hours, and that’s going to cut into feed conversion, and it’s really hard on the cattle to go through that.”
Which is likely what stimulated much of the upside action for the cattle market in Monday's trade. As for the grain markets on the Board of Trade, Leffler says much of that upside movement stems from activities taking place around the globe:
“I think it had more to do with the uncertainty that’s going over in Egypt and some of those other countries. And we did see the energy markets up as much as $3, and that had a lot of effect on our grain market, and our dollar was lower, also. So, you’ve got a lot of things going on out there.”
Although the corn, bean and wheat markets finished well over a dime higher early in the week, Leffler warns there's nothing real solid in the grains to bank on right now.
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