Sort & Cull

Judging by new meat spread data released on Thursday, Thanksgiving at the Beef family home promises to be a motley affair with levels of holiday cheer ranging from sugar-high kids at Disneyland to hunger-strikers at Guantanamo.

Ranchers and feedlot managers will be holding happy court at the head of the banquet table, their plates heaped high and wine glasses overflowing. Celebratory appetites among these family members may seem dangerously voracious. Yet the constant and vigorous backslapping should preempt any need for Heimlich maneuvers.

The average price of all fresh retail beef in October jumped to $5.957, 20% higher than the prior year. This represents a new all-time high, the fifth consecutive month the record book has been rewritten and the sixteenth time since January 2013. Beef's revenue flow from tributaries like Wal-Mart and Kroger continues to swell like a tsunami.

Yet the pilgrims making their way through this buffet line know all too well that talk is cheap when it comes to sharing. Our Native American friends may be more than welcome to a drumstick or two, but that doesn't mean they can ask for a take-out box.

The farm share of beef's retail dollar last month totaled as much as 56.6%, slightly below the all-time record set in July and the second-highest level since March of 1994. For the first 10 months of 2014, farm share has averaged 54.87%, up from 50.01% in Jan-Oct 2013, and the greatest for that period since 1993.

Is there any wonder why the livestock handlers in the family are so damn gregarious?

On the other hand, the cousins near mid table that manage retail meat departments are considerably more measured in their prayers of thanks. According to the October data, their share of the retail data has fallen to 39.51%, 2.6 points below the previous year.

If you ask these paper-hat relatives -- trapped between limited wholesale offering and shell-shocked consumer -- how things have been going in general, don't expect any horn-of-plenty sermon. Brace for an earful of grumbling about slim-pickings through 2014 (i.e., averaging a piece of pie no larger than 38.75% through the Jan-Oct period, the skimpiest portion for the 10-month period served in more than two decades).

But if this cranky branch of the family threatens your Thanksgiving spirit, you might want to slip out the back door rather than ask the downright surly packing-house kin to pass the nuts. Stuck at the wrong end of the table in more ways than one, these malcontents think they can count their blessings on one stump.

Forced to deal with impossibly tight slaughter cattle numbers through the year, beef processors watched their share of the retail dollar plunge to a mere 3.89% last month, a full point below September and nearly 3 points short of October 2013.

Let's hope family members can bite their tongues long enough for the tryptophan to kick in. Still, the host probably needs to be careful in choosing who to carve the turkey.

For more of John's commentary, visit http://feelofthemarket.com/…

(AG)

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