Just been watching the cattle market futures action and there's some interesting divergence happening right now. Live cattle contracts moved up across the board, with front month stuff gaining 10-20 cents while deferred contracts pushed higher by 30-90 cents. Meanwhile feeder cattle futures are getting hit, down about a buck to a buck-seventy-five, which makes sense given how strong corn has been trading lately.

What caught my attention is the export picture. USDA's weekly report showed beef sales hit just over 11k metric tons in late February - that's a calendar year low, pretty weak honestly. Japan was the main buyer but volumes are nothing to write home about. Shipments picked up to around 15k tons that week though, with South Korea taking the biggest chunk. The thing is, when you're watching cattle market futures, these export numbers matter because they signal where demand is heading.

On the cash side, the Fed Cattle Exchange auction had no actual sales reported - just bids sitting at $238. Boxed beef prices moved higher Thursday afternoon, Choice boxes down a bit to $386.89 and Select up slightly. Slaughter estimates came in at 111k head for the day. Overall it feels like the cattle market futures are trying to find direction here, with live cattle holding up better than feeder cattle so far. The spread between Choice and Select narrowed to $6.28, which tells you something about demand patterns across different cuts.