DTN Closing Livestock Comment 04/07 15:14

DTN Closing Livestock Comment 04/07 15:13 Livestock Futures Prices Drift at the Close After spending most of the Thursday session recovering some gains, the live cattle, feeder cattle, and lean hog futures markets each saw some slips into negative territory by the end of the day. Elaine Kub Contributing Analyst GENERAL COMMENTS: Mixed closes among the livestock futures contracts Thursday suggest a market segment that's not willing to stick its neck out too far in either direction before the feed grains markets have a chance to react to fresh USDA supply and demand predictions on Friday. Cash cattle transactions were limited Thursday because the bulk of the business had been transacted earlier in the week, fully steady with last week's weighted average prices. On the National Direct Afternoon Hog Report, negotiated prices were down $0.72 to a weighted average price of $100.30 on 7,350 head, and the 5-day rolling average was $100.83 per cwt. May corn moved up 1 1/4 cents per bushel to $7.57 3/4 and May soybean meal was down $1.60 per ton to $460.20. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 87.92 points and the NASDAQ was up 32.93 points.