The mart trade has hit a little bump in the road this week, with most categories of stock trending downwards on last week’s trading.

Wet weather last week continues to affect the grass trade, with buyers still a little cautious about purchasing big numbers of stock.

The later start to the year is taking its toll on the trade, with most categories of store cattle back on price this week.

Speaking to a few mart managers this week, they say it’s a combination of a few things that has left the trade a little subdued over the last week or so.

In the heavier cattle sections, some finishers and feedlot buyers have had to pull back on purchasing plans, given that appetite from factories has been only lukewarm in the last few weeks.

Delays

Some have stood out of the market for two weeks until they clear the decks and make space for more stores.

Some of these finishers are also doing the sums on cattle purchased in the early part of the year. Store prices were very strong in January and February with big money being paid for forward stores on the back of big factory demand at the time.

These cattle have spent almost four months on expensive feed and these finishers would have been budgeting on €6/kg by the end of April, but R3 bullocks are struggling to get into €5.50/kg this week.

It’s just not adding up for a lot of these finishers so they are thinking twice about replacements.

There is a slight north-south split to the cattle trade. Southern marts are reporting good appetite ringside from farmer buyers in early trading this week, with better weather meaning things are getting back to normal a little quicker.

Moving further north, ground conditions are still mixed, with a lot of cattle still housed in northwestern counties.

Taking a look at this week’s MartBids analysis table, we see a lot of red arrows, which is always a poor sign of the trade.

Analysing it further, we see that in a lot of cases, they are minor corrections – for example, a 3c/kg decline on a 400kg animal is €12.

If we go back to the same week last year, the average 400kg to 500kg heifer is up 20c/kg, while the average 400kg to 500kg bullock is up 13c/kg.

Poorer-quality dairy-cross stock took the biggest hit in the last seven days, with some of these cattle back 20c/kg on the previous week. The weanling trade was also back last week, with exporter activity a little back on previous weeks.

The only exception to this was the top-of-the-range 450kg-plus bull weanling, which saw a 10c/kg increase on the previous week’s trading.

Heavy weanling heifers in the top-quality bracket also saw an increase; up 13c/kg on the previous week.

The popular 300kg to 400kg bull category saw a decrease of between 3c/kg and 11c/kg, depending on quality. Weanling heifers in the same weight category saw a similar decline.

The 400kg bull weanling market appears under pressure, with the top weanlings back 27c/kg in this weight category.