Things started off slowly for the U.S. hide market last week and continued that way through the week. This was not a surprise to anyone involved in the trading of hides and skins. After all, it was our Thanksgiving holiday week in the States, and many here only worked three or four days last week. Packers, Dealers and traders kept the prices on their offer list at the prior week’s levels, which were at least $1.00 or $2.00 higher than their last selling prices. For the most part, buyers showed little or no interest. By Wednesday, there were a limited number of bids in the market for Steer hides, but we were not aware of any bids higher than the prior week’s traded levels for any selection of Steer or Cow hides. However, late Wednesday we were surprised to see, in one of the published market reports, that sales had been reported on both Big Packer Heavy Native and Butt Branded Steer hides that were up $1.00 to $2.00 from their previously traded levels. Interest for U.S. Cow hides was also limited, and those bids were basically steady with last prices paid. The U.S. Cattle slaughter here in the U.S. last week came in at a sizable number considering that last week was a holiday shortened week. Packers continued their profitable run, and with plenty of cattle on feed, it looks like they will continue to process good numbers through their plants for the rest of this year. The USDA’s Export Sales number for hides released last Friday made the prior week came in on the low side for sales, which was expected after the run of high numbers we had seen over the prior three weeks. Because of the late-reported activity in the Steer hide market last week, we are moving our quotes for the per piece FOB plant prices up $1.00 for both the Big Packer Heavy Native and Butt Branded Steer hide selections to $64.00 and $60.00 respectively. We saw nothing regarding the Big Packer and equivalent Heavy Texas Steer hide selection, so our quote on this selection remains $49.00 to $51.00 per hide plant basis.
The Export Sales Report released by the USDA on November 24, 2017 for the seven-day period ending Thursday, November 16h stated that 532,600 whole cattle hides, and wet blue equivalents had been sold for export during that period. This number includes the 20,500 wet blues reported for export in 2018. That total is down a good bit from the prior week’s 665,600 pieces sold for export. China was the number one buyer taking 320,400 pieces or 60 percent of the total units sold. Korea was the second biggest buyer take 148,100 pieces all raw hides.
Federally Inspected Slaughter, (FIS) for the week ending Saturday November 25, 2017, was estimated 572,000 cattle. Year to Date FIS for cattle is estimated 28,676,000 head which is up 5.5 percent from the corresponding period last year.
All the U.S. hide suppliers will be back in their offices this week and one of the first things they will be doing is looking at their sold positions on all their selections. Our guess is that most will find that they still have comfortable sold ahead positions on their Steer hide selections. But, maybe not so much so on their Cow hide selections. We expect supplier’s asking prices will be unchanged or a little higher than last week’s levels. Tanners’ buying ideas are harder to predict. Hope everyone has a good week.
Golf Quote
“The pat on the back, the arm around the shoulder, the praise for what was done right, and the sympathetic nod for what wasn’t are as much a part of life as golf itself.”
– Gerald Ford
