Cattle Futures - Most Hogs Firm; Live Cattle Mostly Weak
US - The Chicago Mercantile Exchange lean hog futures on Monday posted a mostly firm settlement on June/July bull spreading against June longs conducting Goldman Roll business. Most pork belly contracts ended weaker. Monday was the first of five days of the roll, which for the hog pit, consists of funds rolling some of their spot-month long positions into July and August in association with the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index. Meanwhile, CME live cattle finished mostly weak while feeder cattle contracts closed firmer.
8 May 2007
1 minute read
Live cattle contracts opened unchanged to up slightly amid front-month profit taking after last Friday's advances, beef cutout weakness on Friday and typical early-week cash caution. Oddly, back-month cattle opened moderately higher despite overnight-CBOT corn gains.
Beef futures then bounced around throughout the remainder of the session, stirred by later ideas of no-worse-than-steady cash sales this week, mixed boxed beef quotes and periodic spreading and rolling activity.
Some prospective market investors said that for them, "the best play, is not to play" while the Goldman Roll period is in progress. And, a couple of brokers said that they will not get involved in the futures market until there are clear signs about cash direction later this week.
Rosenthal and Fimat were counted as June/August rollers. Locals bought June outright and worked June/Aug bull spreads.
Source: FXSTREET
