Meanwhile, hogs and bellies were lower.

Both cattle pits owe their relative strength to sharply lower corn prices,market analysts and brokers said.

Brokers and analysts said feeder cattle led the way, responding to sharplylower corn prices that were limit down at the close after rain swept over theparched eastern Corn Belt overnight, and forecasts calling for more.

In addition, some technically oriented traders said the feeder cattle market,and the live cattle market to some extent, had gotten oversold of late, so therally attracted some short covering by speculators.

Defensive beef markets continue to haunt the live cattle futures pit, andtraders also are very aware of the plentiful supply of fed cattle coming tomarket - enough to meet very large packer slaughter rates and still maintainpressure on cash prices, brokers say.

Source: FXSTREET