The daily spot Choice box beef cutout ended the week last Friday at $210.99 which was $3.75 higher compared to previous Friday, pulled up by a $28 jump in the daily Choice rib primal which has climbed $102 higher in the past 8 weeks. The recent rally was quite a bit above last year, but has started a severe decline and dropped to $206.55 by Wednesday, November 29 following the 2015 graph more closely.

Total year-to-date box beef sales have fallen below last year and previous years even with the much larger cattle harvest which provides more product. In fact, at the end of April, the total year-to-date box beef sales were 4,300 loads higher than last year and have lost all of those higher numbers even with the big out-front sales spike in August and September, along with bigger export numbers.