US Perspective—14.12.10
14/12/2010
Courtesy of www.thejacobsen.com
The bullish market has a lot of people scratching their heads as they try to understand what is driving prices. This is particularly puzzling when you consider the feedback from tanners saying they are losing money at these levels.
There was a slight pullback on the bottom end of lighter HNS, but the majority of sales for packer hides reflected an increase this week of around a dollar. HTS and BBS sold for $76.50 and HNS for $77 on the upper end of their price ranges. Heifers were up $1.50 from their highs and CBS a dollar. Heavy CBS were unquoted. For the most part, producers sold what they wanted to sell this week. The major players were the Chinese, with the Korean tanners sitting on the sidelines.
Slaughter this past week is estimated to be 674,000 head, down 5,000 from last week’s estimated kill and up from the same period last year when it was 638,366. Earlier in the week, the Urner Barry poll of industry respondents forecast the average estimated slaughter for this week to be 667,235.
The US Department of Agriculture sales report for the week ending December 2 sheds some light on the bullish tone in the hide market. For the week, combined sales for hides and wet blue reached a record high for the year with 881,100 when including 24,555 blue sales for 2011 delivery. Hide and wet blue combined export shipments for the week totalled 667,700, slightly under the week’s slaughter of 679,000.
Below is the three-years-to-date comparison of slaughter, sales, and exports of hides and wet blue through week 48. For 2010, slaughter, sales and shipments are 31,201,768; 28,428,295 and 28,966,200. For 2009, the corresponding figures are 30,274,883; 29,161,000 and 30,386,300. The figures for 2008 are 31,274,300; 28,698,900 and 30,097,900.
US auto sales this past November grew 17% from a year ago with 864,477 light vehicle sales. The 2010 calendar year-to-date figures show sales were up 11.2% with total sales of 10,346,891 units.
Share this story:
