Beef price tracker 2

Albert Johnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123239085#Comment_123239085

You'd think that alright and most cattle that have been bought since Xmas would have gotten a twist in a week or 2 afterwards as the price kept going up. There was certain stock bought last backend that would get a lot of money currently. However I see less dealt cattle in the marts I frequent recently as well. A lot of lads are afraid of buying cattle to show again atm as there at a new price level and the risk of blowing money if there came any upset in the trade is very high.

Access to mart credit is also becoming a problem. Let's say you bought 20 handy cattle to show again every week averaging €750 previously, atm there probably closer to €1100-€1200 and still climbing. If you paid a bit down every week the marts I frequent would probably let you leave the guts of €10k on the slate at any time provided you kept trading and that covered you most years. In the current situation the same 20 cattle are costing the bones of another €10k and where do you pull the money out of to cover this? There still only going to get a small twist in comparison to the money that's tied up and you've more money at stake if anything were to go wrong.

I'd be friendly enough with a good few dealers and a lot of them are telling me they never got it as hard to get stock bought as this year. The traditional jobs you'd get for 5, 10 or maybe 20 cattle this time of year for lads looking to summer cattle and who wouldn't follow the cattle trade week to week are also troublesome currently. Let's say I sell 10 handy coloured cattle to a man every spring for €800-€900 and he gets maybe €1200-€1400 off the land for them in the autumn most years. With the way the cattle job is atm he'd have to give what he got for last year's one's and maybe put money with it to do the same thing as every other year. It's hard to square that circle with men and a lot of the dealers are hesitant to tie up large amounts of money in stock unless they've a guaranteed outlet.

I says

Ah the poor dealers, parasites they controlled mart prices for years with their bolloxing.

kk.man

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123239231#Comment_123239231

Just goes to show without mart credit they don't have a pile of money unless they are very big operators.

Albert Johnson

There's dealer's in every commodity that can be traded and livestock trading hasn't a monopoly on rogues. It's not a crime to make a living in any industry and it's up to everyone to conduct there affairs to the best of there abilities, caveat emptor as the saying goes.

I wasn't arguing for or against dealer's but simply giving my opinion on why there's less dealt cattle about marts at the present time. Being a cattle dealer in the modern world isn't an easy way to make a living. Buying cattle for order to set customers isn't cattle dealing I'm talking about buying cattle to show again in marts or to advertise on donedeal or the likes. Dealing in any business can turn euros into cents if you're not a shrewd operator and manys the one finished up with less than they started with.

Bass Reeves

@Albert Johnson as you posted finance is an issue this year. A couple of us highlighted it about a month ago also. Cattle bought a month ago now look cheap. We are probably hitting the peak for this year. It's a relatively early spring. Biggest factor for many is there was a lot of grazing carried on into late November leaving grass covers tighter than a normal spring.

Marts have credit limits as well. A lad that woukd normally have credit for 15 cattle a week can only buy 10 or less at present. Even if he had the money the same senario prevails. This also effects finishers who might buy before selling where marts might carry them for a week to ten days again theyare probably required to pony up on the day.

Mart's may give a bit of leeway to real.solid lads that alway pay bang on the seven days. Tjey can carry them.to an extent by delaying sending out cheques by 3-4 days.

The fact that dealers and finishers cannot trade like normal may have forced processors to actually buy themselves large num ers out of marts and maje arrangements for to hold tgem.in feedlots for a couple of days. They could always depend on a few finishers and dealers to have cattle on hand to fill out the weeks kill.

In turn this may be puting fierce competition around the ring for finished and semi finished cattle.

HHowever when you look at it some stores ( especially those forward yearling @ 350-400kg) look value at times for slaughter in the autumn if prices stay a ove 6/kg Because they will be n̈needed the way this thing is going. Even lighter ones for slaughter pre and post Christmas look value if prices are around 7/ kg then.

However finance is the issue putting in 40 300+kg yearling AA or HE could leave you 50k lighter in pocket. A lot of lads have slaughtered these at 19-21 months at 5.5-6/kg 2-3 months back.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123239231#Comment_123239231

TBH that is only where lads get them. Online buying evened up the gane if lads adapted to it. There has been substantially less for the last few years. Some ofvthembserve a function in putting bunches of cattle together. There biggest issue now is every goat is going into the mart.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123239288#Comment_123239288

Most business work on some amountnof credit. I am into my overdraft at present. However some are totally dependent on credit

WoozieWu

putting a lot of thought into selling my bulls as weanlings this year and finishing the heifers or even holding onto a couple extra and selling all bar replacements as 11/12 month olds

Sheep breeder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123240311#Comment_123240311

Take money when it’s on offer, who’s to know what the autumn will bring and the big factor the orange fella in America what sort of trouble he will cause by the autumn, we live in a uncertain time with this crazy fella who could cause a war,

WoozieWu

cheap grain means it makes sense to feed cattle well

im in no rush to make a decision

Dickie10

with President Trump and his tarriff on China and their reciprical tariff back on US imports, surely china will have a big demand for beef ? china would import a good bit of beef from USA, would ireland be able to fill this void?

50HX

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123242704#Comment_123242704

Not a hope of filling the void

https://www.farmersjournal.ie/agribusiness/news/massive-jump-in-china-beef-imports-forecast-829678

Cavanjack

Any quotes for this week? Are we up again?

kk.man

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123248689#Comment_123248689

Hearing quotes up by 5 to 10c on last week quotes.

Cavanjack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123251085#Comment_123251085

I’ve heard that €7.50 has been paid for big loads of bulls but can’t confirm if it’s true or not.

Fine Day

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123251636#Comment_123251636

Got a base of €6.90 over the phone earlier. Didn't push it but I'd say there is more in it.

morphy87

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123251815#Comment_123251815

What type of stock have you to sell?

Fine Day

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123251850#Comment_123251850

I have a real mixed bag nearing fit mainly Charolais and Angus and be Rs and Os grade.

morphy87

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123251898#Comment_123251898

Did you except the price? Did he offer you a flat price?

Fine Day

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123251900#Comment_123251900

No, accepted nothing yet. Will try another factory that I do deal with also. Do you think I could get a few more cents?? Having sold anything in the last 4 or 5 weeks.

morphy87

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123251955#Comment_123251955

Well I heard 7.30 flat is going for Angus, I don’t know what prices the continentals are making

Fine Day

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123251975#Comment_123251975

Good to know. Play tough.

locha

7.30 is the factories holding the line price. There is 7.60 to be got and above… I have been at this for 30 years and I have NEVER had a day like today selling cattle with agents

StevenToast

I remember the days of €3.60 per kg and less...got the protests out...

Its not that long ago...

Cavanjack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123252078#Comment_123252078

Great to hear it. Is the 7.60 for blacks?

kk.man

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123251815#Comment_123251815

I got a quote of 6.80 flat last week but didn't push it. I'm not happy that they are as finished yet. I was just testing the waters. Mainly Freisian.

Bass Reeves

I was looking at the HE and AA bonus schemes. I notice they have changed the wording on the booking form. They are stating that if you fail to supply the animals that you may be excluded from future schemes.

This would be grand if the base was negotiated nationwide, however it's up to tge local procurement manager. Tge base usually is 5-20c/ kg below available quotes

kk.man

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123255726#Comment_123255726

Yeah was thinking same lately these 'scheme' are turning into a ACRES type, as in no real benefit when you separate the wood from the trees.

The factories have it as a measurement of what's to come.

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123255955#Comment_123255955

My understanding of these pre booking up until now was you were free to go elsewhere if you were unhappy with the base price. The new form is a change from that. You are prebooking without a quoted base price. I be more open to it if there was a national minimum base price.

When the AA scheme started up first there was national.base prices and the bonus on top. Now there is just the bonus and the base is local bargaining

mr.stonewall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123256015#Comment_123256015

The best move for farmers now it put that form in the bin as the 30c is freely available from most plants for aa stock.

Locking in stock without a fixed price. It rings of the fixed milk price scandal of 2022. The less info factories have on farmers stock the better

DBK1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123256045#Comment_123256045

I’ve never been in any AA or HE scheme and I’ve never failed to get the bonus on any AAX or HEX cattle I’ve killed.

The bin, or preferably the fire, is where them forms should be put.

grass10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123256045#Comment_123256045

You are very accurate with what you say once ever I pre entered cattle for the joke scheme but when I wanted to kill my pre booked cattle each week for 6 weeks in a row I either had to take a low base price or they didn't have space some weeks for my cattle because we have a weekly limit but we'll take them next week at a lower price and as for the joke grades they more than take your bonus away