Sort & Cull

Is Bobby Ewing Back in the Shower?

John Harrington
By  John Harrington , DTN Livestock Analyst

Cattle futures ended the week feeling a lot like the ninth season of the primetime soap opera "Dallas," the outrageous standard of glitz and melodrama in the 1980s.

Over 12 years, the crazy plots rocked between the greed and power lust of J.R. Ewing and his sensitive brother Bobby. Just when you thought J.R. couldn't be more ruthless, the oil baron would push an old lady controlling rich material rights under a bus (or worse).

The shameless writers of the show cashed in on a no-holds-barred-take-no-prisoners style, winning the television ratings war time and again. But the screenplay well must have been running dry at the end of the ninth season when some idiot thought it made sense to kill-off Bobby.

Panic among studio executives must have soon exploded. For the opening scene of the very next season shockingly pictured Bobby's thought-to-be widow Pam opening her shower door only to find the old boy rinsing off after a short dirt nap.

Pam momentarily gasps (as you might) at the unexpected use of hot water, but quickly concludes that Bobby's death had been nothing more than a bad dream. In fact, the entire ninth season had been a dream, freeing the entire cast of characters to reclaim square one and honestly pretend a raft of horrible things never happened.

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"Lame" doesn't begin to describe such pathetic stagecraft.

And yet who can deny that playing the "dream card" wouldn't come in handy now and then. Take for example this month's incredibly ugly performance in the cattle market.

In just three short weeks, feedlot sales have crashed nearly $15, falling to lows not seen since late September. Over the same time period, live and feeder futures have imploded as much as 1,500 and 1,700 points, respectively. Furthermore, the fact that few can blame this market disaster on a specific "smoking gun" only makes the sudden negative shift all the more nightmarish.

But then market watchers awoke Thursday morning to the sound of running water, or at least something vaguely promising.

From Thursday's low to Friday's high, February live advanced by no less than 550 points. Measuring the same stretch, January feeders improved as much as 700 points.

Of course, there is no dismissing of the ruinous December market as a mere dream. The millions in equity lost by beef producers between Thanksgiving and Christmas has left deep, wide-awake scars.

Yet is it possible that a late-December recovery could accelerate enough to cause feedlot and ranch revelers on New Year's Eve to look back with Pam Ewing and happily ask "what was that all about?"

The possibility may strike you as dumb. Truthfully, the only reason I consider this easy-go-easy-come development stems from the fact that the extreme post-Thanksgiving crash didn't make much sense to begin with.

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

(AG)

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