Comparing US and Aussie price trends

摘要

Occasionally when we are looking for direction in Australian cattle markets, it is useful to look at what is happening in the US cattle complex, and see how our prices stack up against their values, and more importantly, historical spreads. That is, we look at the price of Australian cattle relative to cattle in the US, and how current differences compare with levels of the past. There are two major cattle price benchmarks in the US, the feeder cattle futures and the live cattle futures. Both contracts are traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.