Week of September 05, 2026

The Week

Cash cattle gave up almost $6 to about $219 while the Choice cutout barely moved, so the packer kept the difference and the cattle-cutout spread widened to about $492 a head. Live cattle futures fell with the cash. The other half of the week is retail: grocers put beef back on the ad page hard after Labor Day instead of pulling it, and that is why the middles kept climbing when they should have been breaking.

Supply Picture

Steers are averaging about 1012 pounds and still creeping up, so heavier carcasses keep filling in the light kill with extra beef per head. Plants are profitable on every plausible operating-cost assumption. The four-week average spread of about $393 a head is where the packer really stands, and it ran wider than that this week: a lean plant clears it comfortably, a heavy-cost plant only scrapes by. Nobody in that position has to reach for cattle, and that is the entire reason cash slid a second straight week.

Texas lifted two screwworm quarantine areas this week. Douglas is still crossing Mexican cattle under the daily caps. Nothing there touches your boxes this year.

Demand Situation

Last week we called strip loin softer and named the grade spread rebuilding as the thing that would prove us wrong. It rebuilt. Ribeye is up about 13% over four weeks, strip is trading higher than it was when we wrote the call, and retail attention has swung back onto the middles rather than away from them. We are behind on that one and not adding to it.

The washed-out item in beef is 50CL. Fat trim has lost about a third of its value in a month and is cheap for early September. 90CL lean is still priced far above where it belongs, and the trade backdrop says it is exposed: the tariff shakeout has Australian trimmings values sliding, so imported lean is being offered cheaper, forward especially, right as the domestic posting holds rich. Flank is the only cut that prices better for a buyer now than it did four weeks ago, down about 18%. Chuck roll is up about 10%, so keep buying chuck hand to mouth.

Pork Market

Bellies carried the whole month lower, off roughly 23% in four weeks, and took the cutout down with them, about 8.5% over the same stretch. The Labor Day sandwich pull is finished and slicers already have their fall coverage bought. Ribs went the other way and firmed. Our trim call graded wrong, it fell instead of firming, and the ham discount we pointed you at last week has only gotten deeper since, so we were early on both. Pork packers are now losing $2 to $10 a head, which is the argument to make on the quote: they have nothing left to give.

Chicken Market

Wings came off another 4% to about 112 cents with football directly in front of them. We told you to cover September wings last week and they got cheaper. Chicken added roughly 13,000 feature stores this week, parts taking most of it, so the consumer dollar is still working the cheap end of the case even with beef ads up.

Summary

New call: 50CL higher two weeks out. The break has left it well under where it normally sits this week of the year, and the cheap side is where the move shows up first; grinders staring at 90CL priced far above normal will lean harder on cheap fat to make the blend work. Buy 50s now, stay hand to mouth on chuck, and do not chase rib or strip here; both are running on ad support that disappears when these features clear. The one thing that changes this read is carcass weights. Steers keep getting heavier, and if that continues the fat keeps coming and 50CL never gets its bounce.