The saleyards likely to record the highs of the southern weaners sales

Ripley Atkinson, Australian livestock and commodities manager for StoneX, explains where we'll see the best of the sales.

Transcript

00:00It's been a flat out week in the south as the first of what will be 32 wiener sales and 60,000

00:05odd head are sold and the first week has certainly gone off with a bang. Reports are in many cases

00:10vendors expectations have been exceeded. I have Ripley Atkinson, Australian Livestock and

00:15Commodities Manager for Stonex on with me today. Rip what are you hearing about the southern wiener

00:21sales? The wiener sales Sharon have started quite strongly and clearly the vendors expectations

00:28have been met to a little exceeded. There's plenty of cattle about, there's good numbers

00:32that are being supplied and generally the mood you can tell across the board is quite good. Feedlots

00:39are driving this cattle market at the minute. They're really showing and playing their hand

00:43and they're the ones that are have the demand more so than the restockers that we might have

00:48seen a couple of years ago during the rebuild and secondly that continued disparity between

00:55heifers and steers has begun again in earnest in 2025 and what I mean by that is heifers are

01:02operating at a significant price discount on a cents a kilo basis to steers. So that's something

01:09that we saw throughout 2024 and already at the wiener sales we're seeing that again this year.

01:14Any idea what that price differential might be just in the early sales?

01:18Yeah it's looking around sort of 70 to 80 cents which is very similar to what we saw in markets

01:25in 2024 and the other factor to remember is the weight of the cattle isn't there this year so

01:32as we know the south has had a pretty challenging 2024 in terms of growing season and the cattle

01:38are definitely lighter than they have been in previous years but the buyers and the feedlots

01:44particularly are chasing those heavier lines. December saw record monthly volumes of beef

01:49exported and we've heard plenty about excellent overseas demand for Aussie beef in 2025. Do you

01:54think that this has played into the market at this stage? Yeah and I think you raise a really

01:59good point of how good last year was. It's evident that we're producing a lot of product but it's

02:04also clear that you know that the 100 plus countries around the world are wanting it which

02:09is great news. Do you think we've seen the best of the prices for southern wieners or will there

02:14be more upward movement next week and how does it all augur for the rest of the year? What we

02:20typically see is those sales around the New South Wales Victorian border is where you see the

02:27strongest markets and the reason being particularly at the minute this year is the strength of the

02:32northern areas of Australia and what I mean when I say that I mean you know northern New South

02:37Wales into Queensland their seasonal conditions have been excellent. Those buyers have really put

02:42a floor in the market and they're taking a lot of the cattle so a lot of the cattle at the wiener

02:46sales are heading north of the border into those areas because of how good their season has been.

02:52Being at those sales on the border freight comes into consideration the further south you get

02:58you know down to Narrow Court, Hamilton across into that sort of western districts

03:02east and south Australia. The best of the sales will be seen along the you know Wodonga,

03:08Wangaratta, Ye areas and the further we move south and west the expectation is for those

03:14markets to soften and because of the freight bill that's got to be associated with moving those

03:19cattle that's got to be factored into the consideration around price so the higher demand

03:25will centre around those border regions. Thank you so much for joining us today Ripley and all

03:31the best going forward.