Latest / CattleUSA Daily / 302: Iran, Oil, and the Cattle Market — Why Producers Need to Be Watching Headlines with Samantha Cozza-Wright

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302: Iran, Oil, and the Cattle Market — Why Producers Need to Be Watching Headlines with Samantha Cozza-Wright · CattleUSA Daily

0:00
In today's episode, we are bringing on Samantha Koza,
0:02
right, to talk about everything that is happening in the cattle
0:06
market right now. She's giving us a recap of last
0:09
week and then we're also going into a pretty extensive
0:12
discussion on what we plan on seeing in the future, what we
0:16
are expecting for the next few months and what we kind of need
0:19
to see from the cattle market as well.
0:21
It's been a really interesting time in the cattle market,
0:24
especially when we're looking at world economics as well.
0:28
And Samantha breaks all of those factors down as well and gives
0:32
us some really great insight on what the cattle market is
0:34
currently doing, what it's going to be doing, and her thoughts on
0:38
everything as well. Before we hop into today's
0:39
episode with Samantha, if you're watching on YouTube, make sure
0:42
you take a second to hit that subscribe button and like this
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episode. And if you are watching on any
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review it and share it with a friend as well.
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Doing all of these things just continues to help us reach more
0:55
cattlemen throughout the industry and make a wider impact
0:58
on the cattle industry as a whole.
1:00
We appreciate all of you being here, all of you being listeners
1:03
and tuning in to episode after episode with us.
1:06
Thank you for being here. And without further ado, let's
1:09
go ahead and hear from Samantha Kozarite.
1:15
Welcome to the Cattle USA Daily Podcast, your go to source for
1:18
the latest livestock markets, industry insights and the
1:21
updates shaping agriculture today.
1:23
I'm your host Lauren Moylan, a passionate advocate for
1:26
agriculture, here to keep you informed and connected.
1:29
Now let's dive into today's episode.
1:36
Samantha, welcome back to the podcast.
1:38
How is life in Northwest Kansas been treating you?
1:42
It's good. Same old, same old.
1:44
Still haven't got any rain, but it sounds like some people did
1:46
over the weekend. So good that's good for them.
1:49
Praying that some of it comes our way.
1:51
Yeah, for sure. I was out there yesterday
1:54
evening for some things I had to go do and we were driving up
1:59
near Hoxie and I know it's not quite northwest Kansas yet, but
2:03
getting close to up around that area.
2:05
And we were, I mean, I was like, oh, it's beautiful out here, but
2:09
damn is it dry. Like it's so German.
2:12
It is toasted out there and a lot of that pasture ground it's
2:16
you guys definitely need as much moisture as you can possibly
2:18
get. Yeah, the grass is totally mowed
2:21
down like we've been grazing for two months already and we're
2:24
already, we're getting ready to turn out to summer pasture in a
2:25
month. So that's not really good.
2:28
But anyway. We will persevere one way or
2:31
another, but Lord, we need some rain in Kansas, that is for
2:35
sure. So, but on the market side of
2:38
things, what are we kind of see in there?
2:40
Give me the rundown on what this past week is kind of looks like,
2:43
Samantha. So sort of just kind of taking
2:45
it from a 30 foot perspective and kind of getting the full
2:49
picture referring to last week a little bit.
2:51
You know, we built last week's rally on virtually nothing super
2:54
concrete except for some maybe you know, overall momentum
2:58
coming off of lat the week prior trends specifically in the
3:01
feeder crowd market. I'm thinking that you know, a
3:04
lot of the long term outlook also has had a play because a
3:07
lot of producers came into 2026 facing things that we didn't
3:11
expect to come into of different things suggested that we were
3:15
going to have a fairly wet winter and a fairly cold winter.
3:18
And we've been exactly the opposite.
3:20
Of course we came into different things with the fires and having
3:24
different realities as we look towards summer and turning out
3:27
to summer pasture. So long term outlook, you know
3:30
we're trying to prioritize heifer retention and building
3:34
the domestic supply here in the United States and everything
3:37
around us is just not supportive of that.
3:40
So overall I think we are getting some support from that.
3:43
But realistically like I mentioned last week, we had a
3:45
lot of bearish indicators going into it.
3:47
We had higher placement levels on that USDA Catalan feed
3:50
report. We stalled at 2:35 on cash trade
3:54
on a live cattle basis for about two weeks out of your fiber
3:58
feeding regions. But luckily we were still
4:00
getting that support from feeder cattle.
4:02
Like I said, we rallied on feeder cattle for about 3 weeks
4:05
straight. If you tally up all of those
4:08
small rallies in a four week time span figuring a month ago
4:12
Monday we gained 20 to $25 a hundredweight in the feeder
4:16
cattle futures. So those small moves, that's
4:19
where I always look back on because those small moves are
4:21
always what tallies us up to these big moves.
4:24
If you look even five years back we were trading cattle at 1:50
4:28
and feeder cattle futures and now we're up to 370.
4:31
And what US what got us there is those small rallies that add up
4:34
over time. So like I said last week, there
4:36
was tons of bearish indicators to counteract some of that
4:40
momentum going into it. I think looking at futures
4:42
action that definitely he suggested maybe some 2 fourty 1
4:46
cash trade if you were looking at Wednesday's market, 2 fourty
4:49
4 cash trade if you were looking at Thursday's market.
4:52
So that's kind of where our expectations were and the live
4:55
cattle cash market. But I mean, to our surprise, we
4:59
broke out eight to $10 higher. So that's great.
5:01
But there just wasn't a lot of support behind that.
5:03
So that's where I start to get a little weary of what things look
5:05
like going forward. So 2 fourty 650 was the top of
5:10
the cash market and live cattle basis last week and that kind of
5:13
set the tone going into this week and essentially kind of
5:16
wedged a foundation under this rally.
5:19
So that was really nice, but it definitely was an afterthought
5:22
and I think we have to factor that into going into this week,
5:25
of course. So yeah, definitely some of the
5:27
stability, it was definitely the stability that held up April
5:30
live cattle futures yesterday. Everything off everything else
5:34
kind of fell back a ways. The spot month futures on live
5:37
cattle actually hit all time highs on Tuesday at 24820.
5:40
So that's great. I hope they can continue
5:43
climbing a lot. Lot of cattle feeders are
5:45
optimistic of higher cash trade again this week.
5:47
And I really hope that's the case.
5:48
And like I said, I hope futures are very supportive of that.
5:51
But All in all, we did have some down moves on Tuesday and we
5:55
have to, you know, keep those in mind.
5:57
So also looking at that, just a lot of volatility coming off
6:01
some economic tension building into last night's ultimatum on
6:04
Iran, right? Realistically, like I mentioned,
6:06
feeder cattle rallied for three weeks going into this week just
6:10
on the weekly trends. So is this move a huge detriment
6:14
to the cattle market? I don't think so, you know, by
6:17
any means. But, yeah, again, looking at
6:19
that, the ultimatum, right, Trump said, open the Straits of
6:21
Hormuz, get global oil tankers flowing through, you know, fix
6:25
our oil markets, fix our stock market or else.
6:27
It was lights out by 8:00 PM last night, right?
6:29
That was the big thing. Any news outlet you got on that
6:31
was like the big ultimatum. Everybody knew about it unless
6:34
you were totally living under a rock.
6:36
But if you follow the news, long before, not long before that
6:39
deadline, Iran actually reached the ceasefire agreement with the
6:42
United States. They agree to open straight
6:44
leading into those those two week negotiations and
6:48
immediately following that news overnight oil prices tanked
6:53
immediately. The stock market was up big 1000
6:56
points. If it was down 1000 points, that
6:58
would have been a stock market crash.
6:59
So 1000 points is big to be gaining right.
7:03
And again, bear in mind the cattle market tends to react off
7:06
energy. They tend to react off equities,
7:08
off the stock market. And this was always, you know,
7:11
short term bearish, long term bullish situation.
7:14
And those moves in specific were just such a perfect, perfect
7:18
example of that. And you know, for me personally,
7:20
it always comes down to the greater good, you know, in the
7:23
sense specifically from a national security standpoint.
7:26
And that's really what we're dealing with with Iran, right?
7:29
I wouldn't want to be under an administration that welcomes
7:32
terrorism instead of shutting off that possibility.
7:35
I mean, let's really, really not forget what started this all.
7:38
It all goes back to that Iran. Iran was never supposed to have
7:41
a nuclear weapon. And if their weapons could
7:43
already reach Israel, why build a ballistic missile?
7:46
Well, to reach the US? So the goal was simple.
7:49
Shut that down, shut down their nuclear capability.
7:52
And then if you again follow the news comes as no surprise
7:56
knowing the type of people we're dealing with that Iran leading
8:00
up to that deadline put their own people in the way of the
8:02
targets leading into again, that 8:00 PM deadline.
8:04
So it kind of put a Holt and things, but we were very
8:08
fortunate to reach a ceasefire in exchange for the opening of
8:11
the straight. And that's obviously a major,
8:13
major move in the right direction and hopefully is the
8:16
resolution to all of this. But I think it is going to be a
8:19
major, major watch point as we go into the next 24 to 48 hours
8:24
leading into those negotiations on Friday, though.
8:27
Lots of things to be watching. Lots, lots of different economic
8:31
pressure in the markets. I'm guessing, you know, I
8:34
foresee the cattle market hopefully, hopefully reacting
8:37
off those higher moves in the stock market, lower moves in oil
8:40
and hopefully we can build off of that going into the end of
8:43
the week here. Yeah, definitely a focus that we
8:46
want to continue to keep our fingers on the pulse of what is
8:49
happening as far as world economics go, because you said
8:53
it perfectly Samantha that the cattle market does tend to
8:57
playoff of energy and what is happening there.
8:59
So we have some pretty key indicators of what we've been
9:03
seeing as far as just the world reactions over the past few days
9:07
ago. And so it's important that we
9:08
continue to watch that and watch how it continues to play in
9:11
cattle. But I mean, one very good
9:13
positive that we have been seeing with this is that no
9:16
matter what the board has been doing on the cattle market, the
9:19
cash market has been staying pretty strong for the most part.
9:23
Like the cash market has been really resilient.
9:26
And I think that that continues to just show beef demand and the
9:30
fact that people are still moving cattle on the cattle
9:33
market, still going to do what it's going to do, whether it be
9:37
on the board or in the live cattle markets as well.
9:40
So I think that that's just an encouraging thing that we can
9:42
continue to look at no matter what as we go through this.
9:45
But I mean, high highs mean pretty, pretty high risk for
9:49
some pretty low lows and a long way to fall the higher we reach.
9:53
So I think that's always a concern for a lot of producers
9:56
as we continue to have these little wins like you were
9:59
talking about earlier, Samantha that we have been climbing
10:02
pretty significantly in the cattle market.
10:04
And I think that it just opens up some doors for some concern
10:08
as we continue to look forward towards the volatility of the
10:12
cattle market that we've been seeing over the past year and
10:14
then what we could potentially be seeing as we go into the next
10:16
few months. Absolutely.
10:18
And when you're gaining at that fast and at those levels, it
10:21
puts you in a position for, you know, a technical correction.
10:24
So it's something that we need to be watching.
10:26
Of course, we don't expect these markets to go up, up and away
10:29
constantly. It is normal for some healthy
10:31
fluctuation and that's just kind of how things work in the
10:34
commodity world and we understand that.
10:35
But it is nice that we've been able to shrug off a lot of these
10:37
headlines going into it all and hopefully we trade an even
10:40
better headline today on yesterday's ceasefire and the
10:44
oil and the stock market Moving off of that.
10:47
I think that we have some positive things coming in the
10:50
future a little bit depending on how I ran response to this all,
10:54
especially going into these negotiations.
10:55
But I think we're in the path of, you know, the right
10:59
direction and hopefully we can continue this going forward.
11:01
And another thing I want to point out is just that we tend
11:05
to trade headlines for a few weeks or sometimes six weeks or
11:08
sometimes months. And then unless it is getting
11:11
too big to the point we can't ignore them, there comes a point
11:14
to where the market almost exhausts itself with trading the
11:17
same headline and we just move on.
11:19
I mean, like I said last week, we didn't have a lot of bullish
11:22
indicators going into it all, but we went higher anyway and it
11:24
is very reassuring that we still have those sort of dynamics in
11:28
the cattle market to sort of react off of.
11:31
I think something also just to be looking at going into the
11:33
future as far as headlines goes. I mentioned last week, you know
11:36
we are seeing some different things with the possible port
11:39
reopening in Arizona for a live cattle imports from Mexico.
11:43
So I think just within four to six weeks we should be watching
11:47
that. You know the FDA did approve
11:49
quite a few drugs to treat screwworm.
11:51
The most recent case was quite a few miles South of the Arizona
11:55
port. So I think they are going to be
11:57
looking at that more and more. Now on the other side of that,
12:00
we also are seeing being that Mexico has expanded and improved
12:03
their feeding facilities, their processing facilities, so to
12:06
take on a lot more cattle that they weren't able to import
12:09
going north. So it is something that we need
12:11
to continue to monitor on both sides, but all things to just
12:16
bear in mind going forward in this cattle market.
12:18
Yeah, for sure. So as we continue to look
12:20
forward over the next few months, Samantha, what are kind
12:23
of your thoughts as we look into the cattle market for the rest
12:27
of spring? Some things we maybe need to
12:29
keep our eye on or just anything else as far as a historic
12:33
standpoint goes of how the market tends to react within the
12:37
spring months. You know, we get that push from
12:39
the middle cuts in terms of beef demand, and I really think that
12:42
means great thing for live cattle.
12:44
You know, Dan always talks about keeping the Packers profitable.
12:47
And sometimes that can be taken out of context because I'm not
12:50
sure about how I feel about all that, right?
12:53
But it is worth keeping an eye on when the Packers aren't
12:55
profitable. And if their margins are in the
12:57
red, they're going to start taking punches at the producer.
13:00
To where where they can dig themselves out of the dirt and
13:04
get their margins back right. So that's something we need to
13:06
be watching. We're also looking at heavier
13:08
carcass weights, actually historically heavier carcass
13:11
weights in terms of heifers and even steers, not on the average,
13:14
but just on the trend. So we need to be monitoring
13:18
those going forward and also looking super long term and
13:21
historical standpoint, it's obviously no surprise that we
13:24
are at a 70 year low in the cattle market.
13:26
And like I mentioned, there are a lot of long term indicators
13:29
that don't suggest regrowth and rebuilding this cattle herd as
13:34
far as grass acres, there is just so much less availability
13:39
of it. There's even more so less
13:41
availability now because of the million plus acres burned in
13:44
these major fires across the plains states, which also
13:47
happened to be the major cattle producing states.
13:50
So do we long term rebuild this cattle market within the next
13:53
few years? Maybe not.
13:55
And that is a huge long term indicator.
13:57
But at some point, you know, the producer once told me at some
14:00
point these highs have to. And if we were acting off just
14:02
fundamental standpoint alone based on supply and demand, then
14:07
maybe, you know, we could keep climbing.
14:09
But I think that you have to take into account there's so
14:12
many other things that go into a commodity traded market.
14:16
So long term, you know, I think there's still a lot of unknowns
14:20
and it could virtually go in anyway.
14:23
But definitely things to be keeping in mind the term.
14:27
Yeah, for sure. I know over the past year are
14:30
keywords that we have been talking about a little too often
14:33
or just how volatile the cattle market has been.
14:35
And I think that that's something that we're probably
14:38
going to continue to see as we go into the next few months just
14:41
based off of what we have seen so far this year and the
14:45
headline trading and everything else that we're doing.
14:47
And you know what, at least we're trading positive headlines
14:50
the same way we're treat, we're trading the negative headlines.
14:54
That's where I'm at right now. But you know what, if they're
14:56
going to play the headlines game, at least it's working in
14:59
our favor for this one for one. But as we continue to go into
15:02
the next few months, I think that there is just a lot of
15:05
concern for just some continued volatility in the cattle market,
15:08
especially as people are starting to prepare to sell fall
15:12
calves and things like that as we go into the next few months.
15:16
So I know that's always a continued concern.
15:19
And then I mean, we talked about it at the beginning of the
15:21
podcast. Samantha, we need rain in the
15:23
Midwest, like our cattle country desperately needs rain.
15:28
And if we don't get that rain, we're going to start seeing
15:31
those hits on the board and then also on our live cattle market
15:34
as well, because people just simply aren't going to have
15:36
places to put these cattle. John talks about it quite a bit
15:39
too, that in Lahana, they're starting to see on the live
15:42
cattle market, a lot of breads are getting sold right now,
15:45
especially coming off of those mountains and things like that.
15:48
And so I think that it's a continued concern for a lot of
15:50
people within cattle country of just feed availability and land
15:54
availability and the fact that we we need some moisture and we
15:58
need it pretty darn bad. And I know that that's going to
16:00
be a key thing that a lot of people are going to continue to
16:04
watch as we go into the next few months and how that will
16:07
eventually affect the market one way or another.
16:09
Yeah, absolutely. I know I do come in Secretary
16:12
Rollins and everything that she's doing to try and
16:15
incentivize and really prioritize the cattle market and
16:18
the cattle industry going forward.
16:20
You see her pushing for so many different things, opening up
16:22
more federal grazing land. And I think at first thought,
16:25
you know, you think maybe that's not, you know, super positive.
16:30
But they did mention maybe cutting back the regulations on
16:33
the BLM land because a lot of people that I talked to up north
16:36
Montana, Wyoming, they're grazing on BLM land already.
16:39
And there's really, really tight regulations.
16:41
And typically, even if they don't think that drought is a
16:45
huge factor or they're overgrazing the land, you know,
16:48
they still trump regulations, right?
16:50
So they can kick you off technically kick you off that
16:52
land whenever you want. I mean, it's not right whenever
16:55
they want. It's not right.
16:56
But what are you going to do going up against the government
16:59
and and feds? I mean, you basically lose every
17:02
time. So it's tough.
17:02
But I do commend her in the essence of that.
17:05
She is prioritizing the cattle industry and there's so many
17:07
different things that she's doing to try and prioritize the
17:10
producers and that really is awesome to see.
17:13
But something I also want to point out going into it all is
17:16
that if you look at the cattle and the strings of cattle going
17:19
through the sale barns recently, they have been a little bit
17:22
lighter, lighter receipts and a little bit lighter demand.
17:25
Your lighter weight cattle are kind of reaping the benefit of
17:29
those higher markets. And while that's really great in
17:32
and of itself, it's not so much those seven 809 weight cattle
17:37
that are reaping the benefits of that.
17:38
And because those 7 900 LB cattle or what you know, push up
17:42
the national index, I think we are seeing a little bit less
17:46
support from the Siemy Feeder Cattle index in the midst of
17:49
this rally. It is pretty much leveled off.
17:51
It actually was lower on Friday in the midst of higher futures.
17:55
So something to just be keeping an eye on going forward.
17:58
And then also we had the reopening, I guess of the
18:03
packing plant at JBS in Greeley, right?
18:05
And something that really irks me from the standpoint of again,
18:09
headlines lines is remember how drastic the board reacted to the
18:15
announcement of even possibility of a strike at that processing
18:19
plant, right? And then we reopen it for
18:21
operations at 5:00 AM Tuesday morning and there was absolutely
18:26
no reaction from it. Now realistically from a
18:29
standpoint of it wasn't a big deal because we were never
18:32
lacking processing capacity to begin with.
18:35
You know, our slaughter levels even before that, that closure
18:38
in that plant strike were well below historic levels, right?
18:42
But, you know, I mean, if you were talking statistically, if
18:46
you were talking fundamentals, realistically the board should
18:49
have reacted positively to those RE operations, right, and
18:51
reopening it. But it didn't.
18:53
And it just goes to show how fast negative news can hit the
18:57
cattle market so much faster and harder than positive news.
19:00
And that really, really is the most frustrating part of it all.
19:03
Yeah, I could not agree more. Those negative news headlines
19:06
come through and everyone starts clutching their pearls and they
19:11
they really ride that wave. But as soon as a positive news
19:15
headline comes through, it's yesterday's news before it even
19:18
hits the press. So it's definitely one of those
19:20
things that we continue to see in the cattle market.
19:22
And it's crazy how we spent how many weeks on this podcast
19:25
talking about JBS being shut down and the Greeley plant being
19:29
shut down and everything that was happening there, and then
19:32
all of a sudden it's just crickets.
19:34
Everything's back to normal. Nothing like nothing changed.
19:38
And I mean, we talked about how that was probably going to be
19:41
the case here on the podcast itself, but it's still crazy to
19:45
actually be living that reality and all the things.
19:48
One thing Samantha, I did learn in Brazil, we went to a feed lot
19:52
when we were in Brazil and talked to some producers there
19:55
and just the way that they market cattle is very unique.
19:59
They don't go sell cattle in a sail barn.
20:01
There's like, there's the way that they market cattle on the
20:04
cattle life cycle is very unique in Brazil in my opinion.
20:07
But one key thing that I learned from Brazilian cattlemen and
20:11
cattle producers, they also hate JB's.
20:14
So there's that. At least we're not alone in our
20:17
despise for JB's because they also said the same things.
20:21
They're too big. They own our entire country.
20:23
Like there is nothing fair about the way that they sell cattle.
20:27
And like they're like we have like in Brazil, they're like
20:31
they have like 3 major players that they can go to.
20:34
Well, one is JBS, another one is like Chinese owned and another
20:38
one is like not significant in it.
20:41
And they're like nothing is fair about the way that we are able
20:44
to market and process our cattle after they're done here at the
20:48
feed lot. So at least we can all
20:50
collectively agree across the entire world the JBS sucks, so
20:55
there's that. Large concentrated markets are
20:57
not good for anyone, and that is just point blank.
21:01
Yes, exactly. Well, Samantha, is there
21:03
anything else that we didn't hit on today that we need to cover
21:06
as far as the cattle market goes?
21:08
I think so. Perfect.
21:09
Well, as always, thank you for your time.
21:12
This was a great conversation today to all of our listeners
21:15
out there. If you heard everything Samantha
21:17
and I were talking about today, you're a little concerned about
21:19
the volatility. Want to ride these highs in the
21:21
best way possible? Make sure you check out the show
21:23
notes down below and you can get a hold of Samantha or someone
21:26
else from our Cattle USA insurance team and discuss your
21:29
options to continue to protect yourself and your operation as
21:33
we go into some really important months in the cattle industry as
21:36
we continue to go forward. Samantha and I have some really
21:40
awesome podcast. If you go scroll back a little
21:42
bit on what LRP is, explaining, everything about LRP and what it
21:47
kind of means for you and your operations.
21:49
Go and make sure that you check all of those things out and we
21:51
will see you all next time on another episode.
21:54
Have a good one y'all.