# Varilek’s Cattle Call by Scott Varilek: Weakness in the futures | TSLN.com

> Live and feeder cattle futures broke more than $10 in early May after a rally, with managed money liquidating record long positions. Packers used the break to secure inventory at favorable basis levels.

- Date: 2019-05-03 · published 2019-05-03T12:00:00.000Z
- Category: market · region US · magnitude low
- Page: https://feedsoft.ai/events/4622-varilek-s-cattle-call-by-scott-varilek-weakness-in-the-futures-tsln-com
- Commodities: [Live Cattle](https://feedsoft.ai/c/LCATTLE.md), [Feeder Cattle](https://feedsoft.ai/c/FCATTLE.md)

## Why it matters

Fund liquidation drives futures weakness unrelated to fundamentals, which can cut feeder cattle values and influence feedlot procurement costs in the near term.

## Read by commodity

- FCATTLE: bearish ▼
- LCATTLE: bearish ▼

## Linked price moves

| Commodity | Date | Window | Change % | z-score | Why linked |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| LCATTLE | 2019-05-02 | 5 | -5.2% | -3.8 | Live and feeder futures broke over $10 as managed money liquidated record long positions, directly explaining the sharp 5-day drop. |
| LCATTLE | 2019-05-06 | 5 | -6.2% | -3.6 | Managed money liquidating record long positions drove a $10+ break in live and feeder futures in early May, the core sentiment/positioning mechanism behind the 5-day drop. |
| LCATTLE | 2019-04-30 | 1 | -4.1% | -9.9 | Describes the break of over $10 in cattle futures as managed money liquidated record long positions, which helps explain the large z-score drop. |
| LCATTLE | 2019-05-01 | 1 | -4.1% | -10.2 | Dated two days later, it describes the early-May break of more than $10 as managed money liquidated record long positions, which supports the positioning-unwind mechanism but does not pinpoint May 1. |

## Sources

- tsln.com: https://www.tsln.com/opinion/varileks-cattle-call-by-scott-varilek-weakness-in-the-futures/

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Data from Feedsoft AI (https://feedsoft.ai/). For information only; not investment advice.