THE PROTEIN PULSE PODCAST

Closing Bell Friday | September 18, 2026

Your daily market update on all things protein

HOST: Welcome to The Protein Pulse Podcast — your daily market update on all things protein. This is Closing Bell Friday for September 18, 2026, from The Sparks Group.

SHAWN: Pick your screen and you can tell yourself a different beef story. Cash cattle are holding around two twenty-two to two twenty-three while October live cattle just lost two eighty. Choice is slipping. Packers are making money again. Feedlots are still more than three hundred a head underwater. Fresh fifties jumped eighteen percent in a day, while imported South American lean remains materially cheaper than domestic lean. Later today, USDA releases Cattle on Feed. Pre-report expectations are one oh one point eight percent on feed, ninety-seven point three placements, and ninety-six point two marketings. Mexican cattle are starting to return. Tyson is repositioning capacity around where cattle actually are. Imported lean is doing more work in the grind. Cattle on Feed is the next hinge. Everything around it is already under tension.

HOST: The week closes with beef pulling in several directions at once: firm cash cattle, lower futures, softer Choice, improving packer margins, and sharply higher fresh fifties. Domestic cattle supply remains tight, but the industry is adapting around it. Pork producers remain profitable, although rising feed costs are narrowing the cushion. Chicken production continues above year ago. The Senate Farm Bill has put beef labeling, pork production standards, and corn demand into the protein conversation.

SHAWN: Cash and futures are sending two different messages. Nebraska trade developed around two twenty-two to two twenty-three live and three fifty dressed. October live cattle closed two fifteen sixty-five, down two eighty. October feeders fell five twenty-seven to three twenty-four thirty-seven. Thursday afternoon Choice cutout three seventy-two fifteen, down three sixty-six. Select three fifty-one eighty-eight, down two sixty-nine. Spread twenty twenty-seven.

HOST: Packer economics moved the other direction. Sterling estimates beef packer margins at plus one seventy-seven sixteen a head. Feedlot margins remain around minus three oh seven nineteen. Hales expects weekly slaughter around five hundred twenty-five to five hundred thirty-five thousand as positive packer margins provide more incentive to run cattle. Year-to-date cattle slaughter is still seven point six percent below twenty twenty-five.

SHAWN: The grind supplied one of the week’s biggest moves. USDA reported fresh fifty percent lean at a dollar oh two seventy-one, describing trimmings as mostly sharply higher on good demand and light offerings. Fresh eighty-fives averaged three sixty-one ninety-three. Against that, South American nineties have recently been indicated around three oh eight to three twenty F O B U.S. East Coast. That spread keeps imported lean firmly inside the U.S. blend equation.

HOST: Another supply valve is beginning to reopen. Santa Teresa, New Mexico, is expected to reopen September twenty-fourth — a port that historically handled roughly forty-three percent of Mexican cattle imports. Derrell Peel estimates around one hundred fifty thousand head could enter by year-end, with an outside possibility of two hundred fifty thousand. Tyson says its beef network is increasingly centered around Dakota City, Holcomb, and Amarillo, matching slaughter capacity more closely with where cattle are. The cattle herd is rebuilding slowly. The beef system is already adapting around it.

SHAWN: Chicken remains the clearest production-growth protein. For the week ending September twelfth, federally inspected slaughter totaled one hundred fifty-eight point