It is still all downhill for the cow market
The cow and bullock market continues to be impacted by the Aussie dollar and closures of export meatworks for the holiday period.
THE cattle market eased into the holiday period, with small yardings and mixed demand from processors muddying any distinct price trends for slaughter ready animals.
However younger feeder and store cattle benefited from another bout of wet weather, with the Eastern Young Cattle Indicator pushing back over 800c/kg carcass weight again.
Saleyard numbers were low in the final days of trading for this year, with many centres dropping back to just a few hundred.
The cow and bullock market continues to be impacted by the firming Australian dollar and closures of export meatworks for the holiday period.
Data from Meat and Livestock Australia shows the cow market has now been on a downward price trend for more than a month.
The national cow indicator closed the year at 264c/kg liveweight, easing 4c in the past several days and marking a correction of 32c in the past month.
However, on a year-on-year basis cow prices are still 80c higher than the drought impacted rates of last summer.
At Wodonga last week a smaller yarding of 300 cows sold a few cents weaker, with the best heavy cows from 270c/kg to 290c/kg lwt.
But thanks to the good condition of stock this year the average for the main run of heavy D-muscle cows was still $1842, the NLRS reported.
The heaviest individual cows were making over $2500.
The bullock market was also lacklustre in the south.
At Leongatha in Gippsland last week grown steers over 600kg sold from 360c/kg to 388c/kg, loosing up to 19c in places.
However the quote was across a limited run of fewer than 100 cattle, and not all the regular buyers were operating.
Heavy steers ended the year at an average of 351c/kg lwt, and followed a similar price trajectory to cows over the past month, slipping by 25c in this period.
Price results for young cattle, however, have generally been more favourable in the past week, boosted by rain driven buying out of the north.
The Eastern States Young Cattle Indicator closed the year at 813.75c/kg cwt after a jump of 22c in recent days.
There were still some impressive results posted for store cattle in the lead up to Christmas.
On AuctionsPlus young steers in the 280-330kg weight band averaged 464c/kg after reaching a top of 506c/kg late last week.
Heifers of the same size averaged 424c/kg with spikes as high as 584c/kg lwt.
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