CATTLE prices have continued to rally this week, with the benchmark Eastern Young Cattle Indicator picking up 41c in the past seven days to reach 478c/kg carcase weight.

Widespread rain across large parts of Queensland and New South Wales has largely been credited for the increase in prices, with numbers down and a boost of confidence in the restocker market. The indictor has increased 120c in the past month, when it briefly dropped below 350c.

Gunnedah and Roma contributed the highest average prices to the EYCI at 556c and 543c respectively. Numbers were well down at most yards, with Gunnedah penning 416, Roma 1306 and Dalby 711.

Falls between 25-100mm have been recorded in Central, Western and Southern Qld, with similar totals near Moree and Narrabri of Northern NSW, with a little less around Tamworth and Armidale.

Tamworth-based Ray White Rural agent Scott Simshauser said the rain had prompted a complete turn around with some of his clients.

Ray White Rural Tamworth’s Scott Simshauser and Baden Chaffey.

“Sellers have turned into buyers and when you turn a seller into a buyer it changes the market dramatically,” Mr Simshauser said.

“A lot of people will be looking at opportunities for summer grazing crops, I think there has been enough rain for them in a lot of places now.”

Feeders starting to turn

Beef Central columnist and RMA chief executive officer Chris Howie said some producers in Northren NSW had planted forage crops about 10-days-ago in anticipation for the rain – which had largely materialised.

“Stock water might have been the catch, but I think these rains now are giving it a real top up,” he said.

“And the other thing too is I reckon the feeder steer job is already starting to move. So, this rain will stop trucks moving in the north. I have already seen a quote out at $2.80 I reckon it is going to go to $3 and better pretty quickly. Without having any more information than the fact that that is the sort of feel we’re getting about it.

“The rain has bought a bit of confidence back and we’re just starting to see that activity.”

Meat & Livestock Australia’s Feeder Steer Indicator is currently sitting at $2.41, with heavy feeder steers reaching $3 at several saleyards this week.

Widespread rain the clincher

National Livestock Reporting Service operations manager Ripley Atkinson said this week’s rain had followed up some good rain last month, which had really increased confidence.

“It just shows what 50mm across a month can do for people’s confidence in their feedbase,” Mr Atkinson said.

“It really is driven by the producers, because it is the restocker job lifting the market and the feeder market jumping in behind that. I think the market has the capacity to still tick along like this until the end of the year, for the last three weeks of selling.”

While a turn of confidence in NSW started the rally last month, Mr Atkinson said rain across the wider area had forced it up again.

“Right from Roma to Tamworth and everywhere in-between has received rain, which has tightened up supply in just about every saleyard,” he said.

“It was patchy in NSW, but this change has given everyone at least 20mm.”

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.