• The US likes to make up national days of celebration, with today's being National Hamburger Day. 

• Recent government reports - yes, I know - start to build an interesting story about US consumer demand for increasingly higher priced beef. 

• There is a strong correlation between Live Cattle and S&P 500 futures, raising the question of which moves first. 

Let me begin by welcoming you with a hearty “Happy National Hamburger Day” today (Wednesday, May 28, 2025). To those of you outside the US borders, yes, the US has a lot of made-up holidays celebrating everything from a Lost Sock (Lost Sock Memorial Day May 9) to literally Nothing (National Nothing Day, January 16). When the rest of the world doesn’t take the US serious anymore, it gets easier to see why. The US president has proposed a – I’m not sure what word to put here to avoid a fight, so I’ll let you do it – Golden Dome. This makes more sense if we account for his favorite meal, as reported by friends and family: Two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, and a chocolate milk shake from McDonald’s (MCD). The bottom line is the dots have been connected between national security and the Golden Arches. 

But let’s turn our attention to matters of importance rather than insanity. As I talked about in Tuesday’s piece, these are wild times for both live and feeder cattle markets. The volatility goes beyond trade in futures. We can add cash markets, basis, boxed beef markets, and even US stock indexes to the mix as well. 

Before we get to all that, though, I’m going to start in an unexpected place: Last Friday’s Cattle on Feed and Cold Storage reports. (I’ll give you a moment to recover from the shock of me willingly talking about USDA reports. There, that should do it.) The two numbers that stood out to me in the latest round of numbers, from the end of April no less, was US cattle marketed (Cattle on Feed report) and Total Beef (Cold Storage report).

• During April, the US reportedly saw 1.83 million head (mh) marketed, up 6% from the reported 1.73 mh during March.
• As of April 30, 2025 the US reportedly had 418.1 million pounds of total beef in storage, down 2% from the end of March reported figure of 425.2 million pounds.
• On the export side: As of May 1 US total sales (total shipments plus unshipped sales) of beef were reportedly 0.358 million metric tons. This was down 7.5% from the same week the previous marketing year but up 16% from April 3. Within those numbers, US exports accounted for 129.4 million pounds. 

What can we conclude from these government numbers? More cattle moved through the packing plant during April. And while more disappeared from US storage, it wasn’t driven by US demand but rather exports as other countries got caught up in the insane, and quite predictable tariff game (announce possible tariffs, “negotiate”, announce delay in tariffs, repeat every day/week/month). This tells us the US consumer driven economy may finally be showing cracks. Cracks that could turn into fissures that turn into actual breaks.

As I’ve talked about in the past regarding both cattle markets, there has been an unseen hand continuing to provide support. Yes, supplies remain tight, with the latest Cattle on Feed report showing 11.38 million head on feed as of May 1, down 2% from the previous month and 2% from the previous year. But short supply markets don’t last forever, bringing the old saying of “High prices cure high prices” to mind. 

This puts an even brighter spotlight on demand, and as we’ve seen, this could be starting to wane on the domestic front. US boxed beef prices were forced higher during April with choice up $10.05 and select adding $2.01 during the month. As we’ve made our way through May, these prices have continued to climb with high-end cuts reaching nearly $362 while low-end cuts have climbed to $351. Once National Hamburger Day has come and gone, will domestic demand for US beef go with it? 

Or can the US president eat enough Big Macs to offset.