The release of the July MLA cattle market update earlier in the week led to a revision in the cattle slaughter forecast for 2016, to 7.4 million head, indicative of what’s been a tighter season.
East coast cattle yarding staged a sharp decline on the week, from 46,474 to 37,578 head on the back of a 62 per cent fall in Queensland throughput.
East coast cattle yarding is 15.5 per cent under the five-year average for this time of year.
Tighter supply helped the EYCI to a record high of 661.75¢/kg cwt.
But the indicator has been hovering around the 660¢ region for the past four weeks, with subdued beef export prices and lower US cattle futures prices acting as a headwind.
Positive signs were seen on the 90CL frozen cow indicator this week, with a 2.6 per cent lift to 616.9¢/kg CIF.
