So it was great, but excited to get back into the routine of things and talk about what the last two weeks has kind of had in store for us.

Yeah, I would have been ready to go on the second day.

Anyone that knows me knows I'm a homebody.

But no, that's good.

I'm glad you had a good time.

Great experience.

Yeah, it's been a busy couple of weeks here, a lot to unpack.

What are kind of your words to them right now or just thoughts as we look at the cattle market going into just some really vital months for producers?

Okay,

sounds good.

Yeah, today we're going to switch it up a little bit.

In the past, I've came on here and I've talked about the livestock risk protection.

Today, we're actually talking about PRF.

and not to confuse everybody with all these acronyms, but it stands for Pasture, Rangeland, and Forage Protection.

A lot of people refer to it as rain insurance.

I

Well, how have the markets been over the past week? Give us the rundown.

Oh, man.

I mean, I guess nothing spectacular worth talking about.

It seems like we're kind of just in this constant downtrend.

You get a little bit of a green on the board one day and then or back in the red the next.

But it's just, it's a different market that we're dealing with than we were six months ago, even a couple months ago.

So when you get out into the deferred feeder cattle futures and you see two as a front figure from January on and starts getting a little concerning.

But I do think that we need to continue to focus for the next couple years and make sure that we can get the most out of a mostly friendly administration to the cattle industry.

crossing.

But I have a hard time, you know, in this industry, it's hard to tell what's set in stone and what's not.

Because on Monday, I heard that they imported a little bit more than 700.

So a little gray area there, but 700 on average.

You've got 700 on average per day crossing.

I think they had 692 yesterday and they...

They rejected 20 some head due to lesions or cuts and things of that nature.

It is your retailers and your packers that are making this decision on how much beef is going to be at that grocery store counter.

so-I always like to say to that 1%, that one person who knows that this, this show was for them, be encouraged and keep taking steps and, and you keep walking down that road, you're gonna find the satisfaction that you're looking for.

We talked so much back in January, February about where beef demand would be come spring, and here we are, which is insane.

I mean, I can't believe we're already first week into April.

Um, [laughs] it's pretty insane.

All right, let's, uh, all right

... is that what the big surprise was? [laughs]

But what's been happening with the markets, Samantha?

You know, the volatility and some of these fluctuations have really pretty much just followed suit throughout the last 45 days.

It's just been crazy to kind of see the dynamic here at There was a lot of headlines that we had to get out of the way.

And to be quite honest, there was a lot of people that knew about them in advance, Packers being one of them, being the big headline releasers.

And a lot of people were, you know, leaning on the market and trading as such, profit taking their longs, you know, whatever, or their shorts.

And Just a lot of different things going on that was leaning on this market.

It's nice to hopefully, I know I said this 15 days ago, but it's nice.

There's plenty to talk about today, but I'll kind of open that track up to you, Samantha, and let you kind of give your thoughts and commentary on just some of the news headlines that we've seen over the past week as well.

Samantha how are the markets doing

Not too bad, pretty much sideways first part of this week.

And I think that's pretty much the expectation going into this week.

But overall, you know, it's just really nice to be back into a contract month, give the market something, you know, actually tangible to lean on.

We'll stay pretty current here for the next three months.

We've got a contract month, just one after another.

So that's really nice.

Samantha, as we look out into the next couple months, what are kind of your thoughts as we're starting to ramp up for fall?

Well, Samantha, what has the market been doing over the past week?

You know, it's been a lot better than it was first part of last week.

You know, we had that big sell off on Monday.

And then since then, we've recovered about $13 off of that big panic sell just in feeders and another $7 in live cattle.

So it's been pretty good.

Unexpectedly, I think we gained $5 in the cash market on fat cattle last week.

So that was another win for the independent producer for the cattle feeders.

When we get into mandatory labeling outside of that, it gets really sticky really quick.

But I'll just kind of let you take it away and give us the

rundown on everything that's going on.

Yeah, I appreciate that, Lauren.

I agree.

It's nice to be on here twice.

It's one thing to come on here when we're seeing all these big blowups and headlines and and kind of break it down for all of you.

But it's also nice to be able to kind of look at things with clearer minds and calmer heads after that initial, you know, shockwave.

It's live auctions plus market intelligence, reports, tools, and data all in one place.

Do you want to dive into that?

Yep.

So I'll cover that mid-year inventory report here quick just to kind of scan over that if any of you guys kind of missed that.

The all cattle and calves for July 1 was 94.2 million versus 94 million, which was originally reported last year.

And I want to highlight that.

in particular, because I think a lot of these reports are using that original reported number that they had on the USDA report last year, but they actually revised that number later in 2025.

Again, we've talked about this before with our export numbers and how that all came about, but accuracy behind these numbers.

And then once it actually starts happening, what that starts to look like when it comes to the market.

Well, how have the markets been over the last week, Samantha? Give

us the rundown.

We got a little bump yesterday, so that was uplifting.

You know, up until yesterday, it's been probably over three weeks since the last solid run in the cattle complex.

I think over the past three, four weeks, we've sold off an average of $25 in feeders and live cattle.

So just an average.

But yeah, yesterday, we finally got some relief to the upside.

Hopefully we're starting to find that plateau level out different things like that so that people can find some stability in the cattle market again.

Well, what are we seeing in the markets this week, Samantha? Give us the rundown.

Not a whole lot of fireworks yet.

No pun intended.

I mean, we're coming off of a 4th of July weekend.

We kind of got on here last week when we talked about nobody really wanted to put risk on before a three-day holiday open interest was down.

Just not a whole lot going on.

To be right honest with you, I was hoping we'd come out Monday swinging and people would be ready to put some risk on.

So I'll let you kind of go into that.

What have we been seeing over the past week? You

know, probably not too much worth mentioning.

I think we've been pricing in just a few different things here in the complex this week, but honestly, nothing super explosive.

Main drivers are a lot of the lot of this lower market is just really some sideways chop off of some lighter trade.

We've seen a lot of traders exit their long positions Just some end of the month, end of the quarter profit taking.

Boards closed on Friday.

Nobody really wants to put on any risk ahead of that three-day holiday.

So if you want to expand on that anymore or just any other things that we've missed today that we need to make sure we cover.

We can be excited and optimistic.

Yeah, I agree.

I will say it was really crazy to see the dynamic last week between the packer and the cattle feeder because there for a while, I mean, nobody really knew what the market was because nothing really showed up in the market till late Friday, even into Saturday.

And then you saw people coming out, cattle feeders coming out saying, don't give up cattle for cattle.

you know, 256.

We thought we were going to be steady with the last three weeks.

And then we hit that 260 mark and just kept on running.

Samantha, any other thoughts on just kind of what we're seeing in the cattle market right now?

We're still seeing some different sways and different things going on, but that is encouraging nonetheless.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And like I said, I mean, when you look at the fundamental side and you're looking at supply and demand and different things, obviously we can anticipate on this USDA report that we're going to see that reflect.

We're seeing a lot of early sales from drought, fire, and things of that nature, not specifically in a cow market, but in lightweight calves.

So are we going to see placements uptake from last year just from that standpoint, not from the standpoint that we magically grew more cattle than we had last year? No, but it's just the timing of it all.

So will we endure possibly a bearish cattle on feed report today? Maybe, but down the line, I mean, they're looking pretty optimistically bullish at kind of getting that out of the way now.

Someone could have a loudmouth comment and All of a sudden, everything changes.

What's, what's been happening over the past week?

Man, it was a little bit grueling.

We, me and Lauren talked about it a little bit before hitting record, just coming on here to talk yet again about the screw worm.

This has been an ongoing thing for maybe two years in November.

So I know everyone's kinda sick of hearing about it, but-- and I feel like I'm kinda beating a dead horse because everyone's already kinda put their two cents in and talked about it because it happened last week, so we're already almost a week ahead of it.

But obviously still a huge factor in the cattle markets, and I just wanna kinda start with the logistics behind it because not a lot of people, although we're aware of the sterile fly facilities, we're aware of that it's a screw worm, a lot of people aren't aware of, like, the actual biology behind it, I guess would be the correct terminology, just because of how it works and how we're actually treating it or preventing it long term.

So, um, just to kinda give some insight on that, the screw worm itself starts with an actual parasitic fly.

Maybe if we had Dan on, we could get him to, like, put a nice little, like, genie hat on andBring, bring a magic ball and we could, we could rub the magic ball and see, see what happens, right? But what are your thoughts on how this is going to continue to affect the market? Or do you think that we're gonna continue to just like the next time a headline comes out and it hits the front page of the San Francisco Tribune, we're gonna do the exact same thing all over again? Or do you think people are gonna start coming back to this market and saying, "Okay, now that we understand this a little bit more, maybe we're not going to trade the headline as harshly"?

Give us the rundown on what LRP is looking like in the year of 2026.

You bet.

Yeah, I'm really excited to be on today and sharing this with you guys.

It's been a little bit of a hot minute since we did one of these, so I think everyone's due for a little bit of a refresher, especially in these crazy volatile markets.

So just, uh, without further ado, we're gonna really get jump into it about just the LRP basics.

We're gonna do a quick overview as far as the what is LRP, why do I need to use it, and, um, how does it work.

So that's really what we're gonna dive into, gonna kind of split it up in two sections.

But how are the markets doing this week, Samantha? Give us the rundown.

I mean, not as optimistic as maybe we were last week.

Just very, very unsettling, super volatile.

Same old song and dance.

Volatility's been a thing pretty much consistently since these markets have been on an upswing the last five years, but overall just a lot softer.

We're starting to see some of the prices and the big upswings that we've seen back March, April start to level off some.

Feeder cattle especially, they took off $30 a hundred weight three days, two weeks ago.

I'm still concerned about rail speeds at our packers and some other things that are going into the market right nowBut there is still some positivity to be seen once those animals are to the point of slaughter and to our consumer basis.

Well, what have we been seeing on the markets over the past week, Samantha?

It's interesting how every time we come on here and every week it's something different.

I mean, we were coming off of a really, really volatile week last week.

I think everyone's so careful of that, that big crash that everyone's been cautious of for years as we've been on this steady incline in, in cattle prices for the last four or five years here.

And so a lot of people were thinking that that, that crash last week was kind of the beginning of the end.

And you know, I really, now that we've had some time to sit on it and seen how we've transitioned out of it as we're coming into Tuesday of this week, I really don't think that's the c- case.

There was just so much headwind last week.

But at the same time, we've had a really volatile market, but we've also had a really resilient market over the past year, and I think that all of the highs and lows and waves that we've seen has continued to prove that for all of our producers.

Lots of thoughts and prayers out to that, but as far as the cattle market goes, Samantha, what have we been seeing over the past week? Give us the rundown.

A little bit of a rocky start this week, but, you know, I think we've still got plenty of fuel left in the tank, especially as we're going into Memorial Day here on Monday to kind of kick off that summer grilling season.

Um, you know, I've said before, we're to a point in time now where beef demand is really gonna be the backbone, specifically of this cash market for the next couple months, and hopefully futures will start to play off of that.

But with all the focus on direct trade to the packers, that's really gonna be our strength.

Last week's market topped out at 266.

The weighted average settled just shy of 263.

Um, I think to this point, 270 is the next benchmark.

And I mean, that's the whole conversation that we're having today, of a deal gets made in foreign markets, and all of a sudden we're really talking about our boxed beef and what we're doing as far as our export markets are going, because that's what's driving the board right now.

Go ahead, Samantha.

Man, I think you can pretty much pick any direction to go as far as why these cattle markets don't make any sense right now.

Um, I mean, if you're a hedged cattle feeder and you're in the right position, this basis is probably working for you.

If you're not, these margin calls suck.

But realistically, I mean, nothing's really lining up.

We're seeing cash is super, super strong.

We're seeing futures tail back quite a bit, talking 10, $12 basis.

Holy moly.

But what are we seeing as far as markets go this week? Samantha, give us the rundown.

Kind of been all over the place.

Last week, we saw some record high numbers for April.

All of April, honestly, was super impressive in the cattle market.

If you talk to producers, they were either in the opinion that we were due for a technical correction or this thing was going to just keep going up based on seasonality because of beef demand.

Last week, we saw record highs.

Maybe we passed that this week.

But at the same time, hopefully, there is a light at the end of the tunnel coming up soon as well.

Samantha, any continuing thoughts?

Yeah, I mean, really all I've got to say, we get beef demand on the uptick and that looks pretty positive.

We start speeding up the chain floors and that kind of speeds up the cycle all around.

Speed up slaughter and that increases the demand for cattle.

And that's exactly what we need in this low supply market, right? Dan talked about a little bit of volatility, and I think it's been pretty impressive that we've been able to shrug off what would have been bearish tones in the past.

Not to say that that's weeded out forever, but it's been refreshing the last week or so.

We heard some whispers of a potential plant strike at that Fort Collins plant.

Any other highs, lows, things in the market that we missed today that we need to make sure that we head on, Dana or Samantha?