Cattle Market Guys - Week Wrap Up 5-22-2026

Feeder cattle prices are sliding, futures whipsawed three times in three days, and a screwworm outbreak on the southern border is costing Mexico nearly two billion dollars in livestock losses. For U.S. cattle producers, this week delivered a perfect storm of market volatility, global trade shifts, and escalating biosecurity threats — all hitting at once. In this Friday wrap, Brock and Jim break down the latest feeder steer price data, with five-weight steers softening to $464.41/cwt and model projections pointing toward continued downward pressure in the weeks ahead. They walk through a chaotic week in cattle futures — corn-driven selloffs, technical selling, partial recoveries, and pre-report uncertainty — and make the case that demand strength, not just tight supply, is the real story behind elevated prices. On the global stage, Brock and Jim examine China's dominance as the world's largest beef importer, Brazil's push to expand meatpacking access to Chinese markets, and record-setting U.S. beef variety meat exports. They also dig into the biosecurity situation demanding immediate producer attention: USDA has escalated its sterile fly dispersal response to the advancing New World screwworm threat, the U.S.-Mexico border closure remains in effect, and Jim shares a firsthand account from the 1995 screwworm flare-up that still applies today. As Jim puts it, biosecurity is like a fence — it only works if you maintain it every single day.