Well, things were a bit less active in the U.S. hide market last week. It was a slower week than the previous week, when we saw a very active market and more than a fair amount of business put on the books. Last week started with U.S. raw hide and wet blue suppliers putting out offer lists that were shorter than their previous week’s offering lists. The asking prices on those lists were steady on most selections, and up as much as $1.00 on other selections. Tanners, for their part, started the week by responding with a limited number of bids, most of which were down anywhere from $1.00 to $3.00 from levels that were traded the prior week. The result was a standoff for the first three days of the week. Then, some tanners raised their bid prices to levels that were steady to only slightly below suppliers asking levels, and a reasonable amount of business was put together. The business last week was not near the volume done the week before last, but still not a bad follow-up week after the truly busy one. We feel that, by the end of last week, U.S. Steer hide suppliers did make enough sales to allow us to say that the market had bottomed, at least temporarily. Following that theme, we are leaving our price quotes for U.S. Big Packer Steer hides last week steady with our quotes from the prior week. That leaves the FOB plant per piece price for the Heavy Native Steer hide selection between $67.00 and $68.00 per piece and the Butt Branded Steer hide value at from $64.00 to $66.00 per hide. The Big Packer Heavy Texas Steer hide selection was a little different as some were reported sold at both $60.00 to $62.00 per piece plant bases, which we would consider to be down $1.00 from our previous quote. U.S. Cow hide suppliers fared better that U.S. Steer hide producers last week, as they could move their sale prices up, depending on the selection and the origin, by $1.00 to $2.00 per piece.
The Export Sales Report released by the USDA on May 25, 2017 showed net sales of 753,100 U.S. cattle hides and wet blue equivalents were sold for export during the 7-day period ending Thursday May 18, 2017. This number is up from the 533,000 pieces reported as sold for export during the prior week. The leading buyer was China with 345,700 units purchased. Italy was the second largest buyer with 173,300 units booked, all of which were wet blues except for 2,000 pieces of raw hides.
The Federally Inspected Slaughter (FIS) for the week ending Saturday May 27, 2017 was an estimated 613,000 cattle. That number was up from the 602,000 head processed the previous week. For the same period, last year, the FIS was 585,835 head. Year-to-Date FIS is up 666,000 head or 5.6 percent from a year ago.
In the U.S., we observed the annual Memorial Day holiday on Monday. A good number of our Chinese customers will be out of their offices for the first two days of this week, as they enjoy their Dragon Boot Festival holiday. Because of these holidays, we expect this week to get off to a slow start. We anticipate that packers will be asking for steady prices at least on their offering lists this week, for any of the raw hide and wet blue selections they do decide to offer. Cattle slaughter here in the U.S. is expected to continue running a tad above the 600,000-weekly number for the time being. So, no surprises there. There is no question that the U.S. hide market has stabilized itself over the last couple of weeks. Now we must see if suppliers can build on that foundation. Will tanners enter the market? Well, it does not appear that tanners have a lot of raw material inventory so, if not this week, then look for them to get active next week for sure.
GOLF QUOTES
“It’s like a black widow spider. It seduces you, entices you, romances you — and the it stings you, kills you emotionally.”
– Mac O’Grady
“It is nothing new or original to say that golf is played one stroke at a time. But it took me many years to realize it.”
– Bobby Jones
