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A NORTH to south divide has appeared in the benchmark Eastern Young Cattle Indicator this week, as it fell below 600c/kg carcase weight for the first time since the start of the year.

Supply appears to be one of the biggest factors in the drop in price, with 22,000 head contributing to the EYCI, which is up 2500 from last week. The indicator opened at 615.77c this week and looks like it will close at 577.32c.

The indicator is still higher than when it peaked at 571c in December last year. However, it is 104c down from the same time last year when prices were starting to come back from the record highs of 2022.

Meat & Livestock Australia market information manager Stephen Bignell said most of the downward was coming from the south.

“Some of the northern yards like Roma were 10pc above the average, whereas some of the southern yards are 10pc under,” Mr Bignell said.

“Wagga Wagga has been the big one, it was getting 630c last week and this week it is getting 550 – which is an 80c fall.”

According to MLA’s saleyard report for Wagga Wagga, a hot and dry autumn significantly increased the yarding, which saw processes and feedlot spending less on cattle. Feeder steer prices fell 90c week-on-week.

Mr Bignell said across the board supply appears to be the main driver for the drop off in prices.

“To have 22,000 going through the EYCI means there is a lot of supply going through the saleyards,” he said.

“There were some similar sized yardings at the start of February, but we were only having 10,000 at times last year.”

On the demand side, Mr Bignell said restocker activity had slowed in recent weeks.

“The only place where we are getting any restocker activity at the moment is Roma and that is why Roma has higher prices. 40pc of restockers were sold through Roma, Casino was the next biggest at 10pc,” he said.

Several saleyard reports from this week also remarked that buyers were becoming more discerning on quality.

What is the EYCI?

The Eastern Young Cattle Indicator (EYCI) is a seven-day rolling average of young cattle prices (vealer and yearling heifers and steers 200-400kg liveweight, scores C2 and C3) from 23 saleyards across Queensland, NSW and Victoria. It is expressed in c/kg carcase weight.

At any point in time, a seven-day rolling average includes data from the past seven calendar days. In the case of the EYCI, the dataset takes the average ¢/kg cwt of an animal matching the specifications of the indicator per day for the past week, adds them up and divides the figure by seven. The indicator is updated daily to create a rolling average value for this specification of animal.