The Choice boneless ribeye printed $16.44 a pound on October 7, 2026, the highest in 25 years of USDA prints, and it is still at $16.20 in the second week of November. The previous high was a December number, $16.31 on December 17, 2024, set in the holiday week. This one was set in October and has held for five weeks. November is averaging $16.01 against $14.25 a year ago and $13.38 the year before.
The rib is carrying the cutout
The Choice cutout is $358, a long way under its own high of $475 in May 2020. The ribeye is not following it. At 4.5 times the cutout this week, the boneless heavy ribeye is at its highest share of the carcass since the last week of December 2024, and it got there from the other direction: in January 2026 it sat at 2.75 times, the cheapest it had been against the cutout in years. The whole of this year's move is in the rib.
Where the premium sits
| Choice boneless heavy ribeye | |
|---|---|
| All-time high | $16.44, Oct 7, 2026 |
| Nov 12, 2026 | $16.20 |
| November average, 2026 | $16.01 |
| November average, 2025 | $14.25 |
| November average, 2024 | $13.38 |
The grade premium opened with it. Choice has run $3.00 a pound over Select on the heavy ribeye through October and November, against $1.35 in the same weeks last year. Select is up too, $13.66 this November against $12.71, but Choice is the line that ran. That is what a buyer trading down a grade looks like on the print: the Select has firmed, and the gap to Choice has doubled.
The bone did not get the trade. The bone-in lip-on ribeye, the export rib, set its own record of $14.23 on October 26 and prints $2.34 under the boneless this week. Since 2019 it has priced at 88 percent of the boneless per pound; this year 85.5, a wider discount than usual, and its loads this fall are down a quarter on last fall. Nobody went to the bone for relief. The bone-in has its own season, gaining about 4 percent on the boneless in December as the roast buy comes in, and that is the December premium article's subject, not this one's.
Where the trade went
Fall against fall, September to November, 2026 against 2025:
| Choice line | Price | Loads a day |
|---|---|---|
| Boneless ribeye, heavy | +9% | 1.5 against 1.6 |
| Strip loin 0x1 | +4% | 4.8 against 4.9 |
| Bone-in ribeye | +6% | 4.8 against 6.5 |
| Chuck roll | +13% | 5.6 against 8.5 |
| Select boneless ribeye, heavy | +2% | 0.3 against 0.4 |
The strip is the cut that held its volume, at a 4 percent rise while the ribeye rose 9. Everything else in the middle and the chuck got thinner. An importer who trades the boneless rib describes the same market from the other side of the phone: a slower market, customers paying less for grade rather than taking the bone, and butcheries buying different cuts. The strip's loads are the one place that shows on the print.
The cow rib went first
The cow ribeye roll, the 8 to 10 pound 112 off the cutter cow report, set its own record on August 5 at $7.61 a pound and has since come off 19 percent to $6.14. Its 2026 median is $6.65 against $5.44 last year and $3.99 three years ago, and it is trading half the loads it did in 2025, 29 a print day against 58. The cheap rib is not cheap either, and it peaked two months before the fed one did. Whether the fed ribeye follows it down is the question for December, and the prints will answer it.