Generally speaking, this has not been a good year for seasonal trends in the livestock complex. For example, red meat rallies through the second quarter are typically slam-dunks. But certainly not in 2009.

Unusual claims of recession, swine flu and weather have time and again derailed general price trends that in a more “normal year” would have been fairly predictable.

Yet at least one market has pretty much sung the seasonal sheet music, albeit in a lower key. While yearling and calf prices have averaged about 10-15 percent below 2008 throughout the year, they have generally turned corners on schedule. For example, the cash index bottomed in early March and then essentially wandered its way higher through late July.

True, both this bottom and high may have as much as a month early. But such faulting seems to be a little picky given this year’s helter shelter activity in other market arenas.

Indeed, if the feeder market is generally on course, skewed only by a slightly faster than normal pace, I feel somewhat confident in predicting that a late year bottom is close at hand. It may have already come and gone.

Seasonal trends tend to be reliable because they reflect long-term realities of production, nature and buyer/seller behavior. Still, they represent just a piece of a market’s puzzle, one that can either been strengthened or trumped by other pieces. Again, we’ve been reminded this year that seasonality is far from infallible.

But I see the late year feeder trend as fitting nicely with fundamental's assumptions and a good numbers of complimentary factors.

Start with the basic fact that feeder cattle supplies will continue to shrink at least through the next two years. Thanks to near relentless cow liquidation this decade and a long, strong dwindling of calf crops (e.g., the calf crop is down 1.5 million head in the last three years alone), most analysts expect feeders and calves outside feedlots on January 1 to be the smallest total in history.

On the demand side, throw in at least two hot potatoes: 1) the commercial feedlot sector continues to struggle with surplus pen capacity, and 2) the delayed and damaged nature of the corn harvest could significantly stimulate farmer-feeding interest.

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(AG)