USDA Cattle on Feed Report Preview

OMAHA (DTN) -- Friday's April 1 USDA Cattle on Feed report should come with little to no surprises. On-feed numbers will be lighter, placements will be lighter and marketings again will be robust.

All of this should aid the live cattle and feeder cattle markets in trading steady to somewhat higher. What will affect the market more than anything is the degree to which on-feed and placements are lower. It's hard to tell whether this report will help the market actually trade higher, as the Cattle on Feed report has historically been more apt to affect the market when its findings are poor as opposed to supporting the market when its findings are supportive.

USDA will release its April 1 Cattle on Feed at 2 p.m. CDT on Friday.

	USDA Actual	Average Estimate	Range
On Feed April 1		94.8%	94.1-95.4%
Placed in March		94.9%	91.5-99.0%
Marketed in March		98.8%	97.2-99.6%

ShayLe Stewart can be reached at ShayLe.Stewart@dtn.com

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