USDA AMS · Livestock Mandatory Reporting
The daily national cutout value for Choice and Select 600-900 lb carcasses, with the loads that traded behind it.
The cutout is what a packer gets for the carcass, broken into its primal cuts and priced daily. It is the revenue side of the packer margin, and the margin is what decides how hard packers bid for fed cattle: when the cutout runs well above what cattle cost, they buy and kill aggressively, and when it compresses they slow the chain instead. That backs animals up in the feedlots and softens the cash market from the far end, which is why a feedlot watches a number set several steps downstream of it.
Choice closed at $373.35 per cwt (-1.50 on the day), Select at $354.30 (+2.57), a Choice-Select spread of $19.05, on 124.40 loads.
Oldest to newest · 85 trading days
| Grade | Loads |
|---|---|
| Choice | 83.14 |
| Select | 8.07 |
| Trimmings | 15.30 |
| Grinds | 17.89 |
Source: USDA AMS National Daily Boxed Beef Cutout (LM_XB403), negotiated sales, afternoon report. A load is roughly 40,000 lb.
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