January 28

1/28 – President Trump reached a deal with congressional leaders on Friday to reopen the government for three weeks. The short-term deal provides financial relief for about 800,000 federal workers, who have been furloughed or on the job without pay for more than a month. USDA offices reopen today and the forthcoming backlog of USDA reports could potentially induce real volatility into grain and livestock prices. Meanwhile, there was no Cattle on Feed report released on Friday. Private analysts’ pre-report consensus was for December placements to be up 2.0% from a year ago and near a record high for the month. Total feedlot inventories were projected up 2.3%. Cattle futures, which started the month of December at $116.88/cwt, closed at $126.05 on 1/25. Futures prices averaged $114.43/cwt for the year in 2018 and are trading at $119.24 on average for 2019.