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 nine oh six million head. Weekly USDA data showed slaughter and ready-to-cook production both about two percent above year ago year-to-date. The daily series through September seventeenth showed head count running one point two percent above year ago. HPAI remains the principal operational wildcard. New U S Poultry-funded work has produced a depopulation-planning calculator for emergency response. For now, chicken continues adding production while beef continues managing scarcity.

HOST: August pork producer economics remained positive, but the cushion is narrowing. Thursday cutout eighty-seven fifty-four, up a dollar nineteen. Loins eighty-six sixty-three. Bellies eighty-five forty-eight. Picnics seventy-one thirty-two. Forty-twos seventy-three ninety-one. Seventy-twos ninety-five ninety-eight. Iowa State estimates August farrow-to-finish returns at plus twenty sixty-three a head — twenty-nine consecutive months of profitability. That was down twenty-four percent from July and sixty-one percent from a year ago.

SHAWN: Feed is doing more of the squeezing. August feed costs reached eighty-eight ninety a head, the highest of twenty twenty-six. Corn thirty-nine fifty-two. Meal fifteen forty-five, up nineteen percent from last August. Pork remains profitable. The forward margin picture is becoming less comfortable.

HOST: China is sending two very different signals. August imports of corn, sorghum, and barley increased sharply year over year. Pork imports fell nearly twenty-nine percent. Feed-grain demand strengthened while imported pork demand weakened. July U.S. beef exports held up despite high domestic prices — roughly eighty-nine thousand metric tons, essentially steady with year ago, while value increased about six percent to nearly seven hundred ninety-seven million. Pork exports declined roughly six percent in both volume and value. South America remains especially important to the U.S. lean-beef equation. Competitively priced South American product continues to influence blend economics well beyond the import market itself.

SHAWN: The Senate Agriculture Committee advanced the Agriculture Act of twenty twenty-six on a twelve-to-eleven vote. The package includes year-round E fifteen and mandatory country-of-origin labeling provisions. It still has to move through the broader process. For beef, the labeling language directs USDA and U S T R toward a W T O-compliant path for reinstating M COOL. Additional origin segregation and recordkeeping could affect processing economics in a market currently reliant on imported lean. For pork, an effort to insert the Save Our Bacon Act aimed at state livestock-production mandates such as California Proposition Twelve did not make the committee package. For feed, year-round E fifteen adds another structural demand consideration for corn.

HOST: Radar. South American nineties remain materially below domestic fresh lean. Fresh fifties moved to a dollar oh two seventy-one on good demand and light offerings. Cash cattle have not followed futures lower. Improved packer economics are supporting slaughter rates. Corn remains above five thirty. Meal jumped seven eighty. Crude remains above one hundred, keeping freight and processing costs elevated.

SHAWN: This week changed the shape of the cattle story. Packers moved back into positive territory. Cash cattle refused to follow futures lower. Fresh fifties tightened sharply. Mexican feeder flows started reopening. Tyson made clear it is restructuring around a smaller cattle supply rather than waiting for the herd to rebuild. The shortage is not new. What changed this week is how clearly the industry is adapting to it.

HOST: Snapshot. Choice three seventy-two. Select three fifty-two. Fresh nineties four twenty-seven, last established September sixteenth. Fifties a dollar oh three. Pork cutout eighty-eight cents. October live cattle two fifteen sixty-five. October crude one oh one ninety-one. Thursday slaughter: cattle one hundred seven thousand, hogs four hundred ninety-three thousand, chicken thirty-five point seven eight four million. Year-to-date cattle down seven point six. Hogs down nine-tenths. Chicken up one point two.

SHAWN: Bottom line. The cattle herd still has not rebuilt. But the rest of the beef system is already adapting around the shortage. Packers are running harder because margins improved. Tyson is concentrating capacity where cattle actually exist. Mexican feeder cattle are beginning to return. Imported lean is filling part of the grind gap. Domestic trim can still move sharply even while boxed beef softens. Later today, Cattle on Feed will give another read on how many cattle are already in the system and how many were placed in August. This edition does not need that number to define the week. The market is adapting faster than the cattle herd is rebuilding. Stay disciplined.

HOST: That’s The Protein Pulse Closing Bell Friday for September 18, 2026. From Shawn Sparks and The Sparks Group. For sourcing, procurement, and market intelligence, visit TheSparks.Group.

SHAWN: Stay disciplined.