Commodities : Monday, July 13, 1987 : Livestock Futures Retreat

Livestock and meat futures retreated Monday, with some pork belly contracts losing the limit allowed for daily trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

Monday’s was the second consecutive session that pork bellies lost the 2 cents-a-pound limit.

Pork futures prices are still carrying large discounts to the cash market, which implies an ongoing underlying weakness. So, after strong advances early last week, pork futures lapsed into a selloff, said Charlie Richardson, an analyst in Denver with Lind-Waldock.

There also was speculation that cooler weather in the Midwest for the next few days could bring a larger country movement of hogs, traders said.

Cattle was weakened by the sharp decline in pork, said Richardson, but also had problems of its own.

Last week saw a large volume of boxed beef trade that gave retailers plenty of stock and little need to buy this week, he said.

Packers also bought a lot of cattle last week, so they were bidding lower at the feedlots and were expected to continue this trend for a couple days.