1. Market Overview and the Honest Cattle Market Index

Honest Cattle Market Index: 134.1, week ending August 29, 2026, computed September 1. The base is the 2024 calendar-year average set to 100, so 134.1 means Montana cattle revenue conditions are running 34.1 percent above what they averaged in 2024. The index fell 2.8 points on the week, and every bit of that came from the futures legs — feeder cattle from $334.75 to $320.90 and live cattle from $223.05 to $219.25 — while the Montana cash steer leg held flat because it is still carried at its last USDA print of $481.74 rather than freshly traded, and the cull cow leg firmed slightly to $165.73. One further note in the interest of keeping our own record straight: this report published 132.2 for this same week seven days ago as a provisional print. The final number came in at 134.1. The provisional reconciled 1.9 points higher, which is exactly what a provisional print is supposed to be able to do. Rising means improving price conditions. It measures revenue conditions, not profit, and it is neither advice nor a forecast. Full methodology and how to read it: honestcattle.net/2026/06/23/montana-cattle-index.

HCMI Forward Curve

Read that curve carefully, because it is not an Honest Cattle forecast. Every number in it is a price somebody actually paid: deferred CME settlements, plus forward-delivery video sales of 600–649 pound Montana-origin steer calves bucketed by delivery month. Where no forward-delivery lots existed for a month, the leg is carried at the last cash print and the table says so. The video legs are forward FOB prices with a price slide attached, not spot cash bids. February 2027 does not appear because no quote was captured for it; Honest Cattle shows the months it has rather than interpolating one it does not. What the curve says is straightforward: the market’s own money prices Montana cattle revenue conditions drifting down about six points from here into December, then flattening.

The week ending September 5, 2026 gave Honest Cattle the two things it had been waiting on, and both of them said the same thing. Superior Livestock ran a 41,129-head video sale on September 4 and the calf book traded lower again — a few current-delivery sales $10.00 to $20.00 under the last sale, and the much larger forward book carrying what USDA called a lower undertone. Then Montana’s own barns opened the fall run and printed real numbers for the first time in weeks. Honest Cattle is cutting all three near-quarter calf bands roughly $13 to $15 per hundredweight. That is the third cut in four weeks, and it is the honest reading of the market’s own transactions.

The barn numbers are the part a Montana rancher can hold in his hand. Public Auction Yards in Billings sold 1,423 head on Wednesday, September 2 — the biggest single Montana sale in weeks — and 20 head of 568-pound unweaned steer calves brought $392.32 per hundredweight while 38 head of 627-pound steers brought $368.34. Billings Livestock Commission sold 797 head on Thursday. Miles City sold 381 on Tuesday. Lewistown sold just under 400, Montana Livestock Auction at Ramsay sold 266 under new ownership, and Headwaters at Three Forks sold 106 with the market $4.00 to $6.00 lower. Six of the twelve licensed Montana markets sold in the window and Honest Cattle has real numbers from all six. Section 6 carries the full roster, including the six that did not sell or do not publish.

Corn stayed heavy and the fed market slipped. December corn settled at $5.36 and three-quarters on Friday, down four cents on the day. October live cattle settled at $212.95, down $1.35. October feeder cattle settled at $320.15, down 95 cents. Cash fed cattle traded at $344 to $345 dressed in the North, steady to a dollar lower, and $219 to $223 live in the South. The boxed beef cutout kept giving ground: Choice averaged $377.49 for the week, down $5.90, and Select averaged $355.82, down $7.57.

There is a correction to report, and it matters. Last week’s revision restated the rancher’s share of the retail beef dollar as 40.8 percent and called it a warning. That was wrong. USDA’s Economic Research Service publishes the number itself, and its own series says the farmer’s share of the Choice beef retail dollar was 51.1 percent in July 2026. The Price Transmission Index is back where the August 24 edition had it — plus 5.3 points above the five-year average of 45.8 percent, which is green. Section 19 carries the full explanation and Section 1’s scorecard logs it.

Sentiment falls to 4.5 out of 10 from 5.0. Honest Cattle does not cut the bands and hold the score. What keeps the number from falling further is real and worth naming: July feedlot placements were the lowest on record, the quality spread widened again to $21.67, the rancher’s share is genuinely green, and 83 percent of the replacement cattle sold in Montana’s reporting week were bred females — people with money down are betting on calves seven to ten months out. The fall a rancher is shipping into got cheaper this week. The years after it did not.

2. 2026 Montana Quarterly Forecast

Honest Cattle’s Montana quarterly calf bands are ADJUSTED DOWN across all three near quarters this week — Q3 2026 by $15 per hundredweight, Q4 2026 and Q1 2027 by $13. The bands are published in two tight weight classes, 550–599 lb and 600–649 lb, for steers and heifers, FOB auction, and the table now runs through Q4 2027.

Q3 2026 (Jul–Sep): ADJUSTED DOWN to $460–$495/cwt steer (mid $477) and $435–$470/cwt heifer (mid $452) for 550–599 lb calves; $435–$465/cwt steer (mid $450) and $410–$440/cwt heifer (mid $425) for 600–649 lb calves. Prior week: $475–$510 (mid $492) and $450–$480 (mid $465) on the steer side.

Q4 2026 (Oct–Dec): ADJUSTED DOWN to $443–$478/cwt steer (mid $460) and $418–$453/cwt heifer (mid $435) for 550–599 lb calves; $413–$448/cwt steer (mid $430) and $388–$423/cwt heifer (mid $405) for 600–649 lb calves. Prior week: $455–$490 (mid $473) and $425–$460 (mid $443) on the steer side.

Q1 2027 (Jan–Mar): ADJUSTED DOWN to $445–$480/cwt steer (mid $462) and $420–$455/cwt heifer (mid $437) for 550–599 lb calves; $415–$450/cwt steer (mid $432) and $390–$425/cwt heifer (mid $407) for 600–649 lb calves. Prior week: $457–$492 (mid $475) and $427–$462 (mid $445) on the steer side.

Why the cut, in plain terms. Last week Honest Cattle held the bands and said the reason was that real Montana video forward prices — $433.17 for October delivery, $439.14 for November, $446.15 for December — sat inside or close to the bands. Those prices were transacted at the July 10, July 30 and August 21 sales. On September 4, Superior ran the next big sale, and USDA’s own summary of it says feeder steers were lightly tested for current delivery with a few sales $10.00 to $20.00 lower, and that the bulk of the calf trade, which was for future delivery, mostly traded with a lower undertone. That is the same forward book Honest Cattle used to justify holding, marked down again. A $13 to $15 cut is the middle of that $10 to $20 range, not the top of it.

Why the cut is not bigger, which is the harder question. Montana’s own barns printed 568-pound steers at $392.32 and 627-pound steers at $368.34 this week (Section 6). Those are a very long way below the bands above. They are not the same cattle. Those were unweaned calves in 20- and 38-head lots, sold off the cow in the first week of September, in a state where the September sale calendar is thin and the buyer pool is still assembling. The bands describe load lots of Montana-origin calves — the 50,000-pound uniform, weaned, shot, reputation cattle that make up the bulk of what Montana actually markets in the fall, and that trade through the video houses and the special feeder sales in October and November. Honest Cattle is not going to reprice its load-lot band off a 20-head unweaned single-lot print, and it is not going to pretend the gap does not exist either. If you are shipping unweaned singles in early September, expect the barn number, not the band. That difference — real, and worth $60 to $80 per hundredweight in a week like this one — is one of the most valuable things this forecast can tell a rancher.

2027 Extension — Q2 through Q4 2027

The three quarters above are Honest Cattle’s own forecast. The three below are the market’s forecast, not ours — deferred CME feeder-cattle settlements converted into Montana calf bands using the calf-to-futures ratio our own published quarters imply. They are labeled by source and are deliberately not blended into the near-quarter calls. Settlements are Friday, September 4, 2026.

How these bands are built, and how to read them. The deferred feeder board is flat and it is cheap. April 2027 settled at $305.52, May at $305.08, August at $305.27 and September at $302.70 — every one of them well below the October 2026 contract at $320.15. The market is pricing no spring 2027 rally and a step down from this fall. To turn those settlements into Montana calf bands, Honest Cattle uses the ratio between its own published 550–599 lb steer midpoints and the futures window each quarter prices off: 1.469 for Q3 2026, 1.449 for Q4 2026 and 1.507 for Q1 2027, with Q2 2027 interpolated at 1.488. Those ratios moved this week because the published bands they are built on moved — the recipe recalibrates whenever a near-quarter band changes, which it did.

What changed in the mechanics this week. The September 2027 feeder contract now lists, so Q3 2027 is built from the August and September contracts together rather than August alone — a firmer row than it was. October and November 2027 still do not list, so Q4 2027 remains the one extrapolated row in the table: the August 2027 settlement carried down the same Q3-to-Q4 slope the 2026 curve shows, −4.3 percent. It is the least firm number here and it is marked as such. Ranges on all 2027 rows are widened to ±$25, and ±$30 on Q4 2027, against ±$17.50 on the published quarters — wider bands for a thinner basis.

The honest reading. Q2 2027 550–599 lb steers come out at a $454 midpoint. That is below this year’s Q3 band, not above it. If you believe a tightening 2027 calf supply beats the import flow and the board is wrong, this table tells you exactly how much you are disagreeing with the market by — roughly $23 a hundredweight between the Q2 2027 midpoint and this quarter’s. That is the useful thing about publishing the board’s number next to ours rather than instead of it.

Bred Females and Cull Cows — Quarterly Forecast

The classes that make up the rest of a cow-calf balance sheet. “Bred cow” is the running-age, six-to-eight-year-old benchmark.

How the bred and cull rows are built. There is no bred-cow board and no cull-cow board, so these are scaling rules off real Montana prints, stated plainly. Two of the three anchors are fresh prints this week, and where a print exists it replaces the rule. Bred heifers anchor on this week’s actual Montana print — $2,766.73 across 50 head, first-trimester, under two years old — and scale by each quarter’s 550–599 lb steer band, on the logic that a bred female is worth the calf revenue she represents. The cull row anchors on this week’s boner cow print of $165.81 across 195 head, de-seasonalized and re-seasonalized on the standard cull pattern, with a −2.6 percent 2027 drift matching the deferred live-cattle board.

The one carried number, disclosed. Running-age bred cows are still carried at $2,750. The only six-to-eight-year-old bred print Montana produced this week was a single head at $2,800 — too thin to anchor a six-quarter table on. That cell gets replaced the week a real bred run gives us volume, and this section will say so when it happens. Honest Cattle has also deliberately left out any bred-sale seasonal premium: fall and winter bred specials usually pay up, but no number goes in this table until the replacement-sale history has been parsed and can be shown. The Q4 and Q1 bred cells may therefore prove conservative.

Forecast Accuracy & Calibration

Honest Cattle grades its own past quarterly calls every week, so a rancher knows how much weight to put on this week’s band. The scorecard pairs each realized Montana weekly steer weighted average with the Honest Cattle quarterly midpoint that was in effect that week. The file was rebuilt fresh this morning (generated September 6, 2026).

The sample is still 5 paired weeks — 3 in the 550–599 band, 2 in the 600–649 band. Treat every number below as indicative, not conclusive: the significance floor is 8 pairs and we are not there.

Bias: −$2.87/cwt overall. Negative means realized prices came in below our forecast — on average we have forecast slightly high. On a 575-pound calf that is about $16 a head. By band it splits: the 550–599 band runs +$4.89/cwt (we forecast low there) while the 600–649 band runs −$14.51/cwt (we forecast high there). That split is itself informative this week, because the 600–649 band is exactly where the current barn prints are weakest.

MPE: −0.81 percent. That is the same directional miss expressed as a share of price. A small MPE against a much larger typical miss means our errors mostly cancel rather than leaning consistently one way — which is good for calibration even in a noisy stretch.

MAD: $20.20/cwt. This is the headline accuracy number — the typical miss, direction ignored. In a normal week, expect our band midpoint to be off by about $20 either way. On a 575-pound calf that is roughly $116 a head of honest uncertainty around the midpoint.

MSE 633.29; RMSE $25.17/cwt. MSE is not in dollars and is not meant to be read directly; it exists to punish big misses and to feed RMSE. RMSE at $25.17 against a MAD of $20.20 means our misses are not evenly sized — one large bust (the May 4 miss of $38.42/cwt) is still doing a lot of the work.

Calibration regression (actual = a + b × forecast): slope −0.075, intercept $523.51/cwt, R² = 0.001. Read plainly: with five points, our forecast currently has no measurable statistical relationship to the realized price at all. That is not a claim that the forecast is worthless — five points cannot support that claim either — it is a claim that this scorecard cannot yet tell skill from noise. It will not be able to until n grows well past eight.

What it means for this week’s band. The one signal the scorecard does give is the band split: we have run about $14.51/cwt high in the 600–649 class and about $4.89/cwt low in the 550–599 class. This week’s cut takes $15 off the 600–649 Q3 band, which is very close to exactly the size of that measured high-side bias. Lean to the lower half of the 600–649 range and the middle of the 550–599 range.

Corrections this week: yes — two. First and most material, Section 19’s Price Transmission Index. Last week’s revision replaced a correct 51.1 percent, GREEN rancher-share reading with an incorrect 40.8 percent, WARNING reading. USDA ERS publishes the farmer’s share of the Choice beef retail dollar directly, and its own file says 51.1 percent for July 2026. The August 24 edition was right and last week’s “correction” was the error. Full explanation in Section 19. Second, a measurement note rather than a mistake: Sections 9 and 18 now quote the Choice–Select spread from the USDA weekly report (AMS_2461) rather than a single day’s daily print, so the week-to-week series is consistent. Recent editions mixed the two, which made the spread look like it fell further than it did.

What comes next for the scorecard. Once more weeks accrue, Honest Cattle will start testing which of the five signal sections in this report actually move the realized Montana calf price, and by how much, and will publish the answer here instead of relying only on the fixed dollar rules used in Sections 3, 9, 10, 15 and 19.

n = number of paired observations. Bias = average signed miss (+ = we forecast low). MPE = mean percentage error, the signed miss as a percent of price. MAD = mean absolute deviation, the average miss size ignoring direction. MSE = mean squared error, a big-miss-weighted average that is not in dollars. RMSE = root mean squared error, MSE returned to dollars per hundredweight. R² = the share of the real price swing our forecast explains, from 0 to 1.

3. CME Futures and Corn

Corn first, because corn leads. December corn settled at $5.36 and three-quarters per bushel on Friday, September 4, 2026, down 4 cents on the day. December corn is now the contract that leads this market — the September contract that this forecast quoted a week ago at $5.12 is inside its delivery month and is no longer the right reference. That contract change matters for every ratio below and Honest Cattle flags it rather than presenting a roll as a price move.

October live cattle settled at $212.95 per hundredweight, down $1.35 (−0.6%) on the day; December live cattle settled at $214.72, down $1.40. October feeder cattle settled at $320.15, down 95 cents (−0.3%); November feeders settled at $314.72, down 57 cents. Against the prior Friday’s prints — October live cattle $211.72 and September feeders $320.90 — live cattle finished the week $1.23 higher (+0.6%) while the feeder complex was effectively flat to slightly lower depending on which contract you follow. Neither market broke; both leaked.

The feeder/corn ratio is 59.6 (October feeders $320.15 ÷ December corn $5.3675), against a ten-year average band of roughly 55 to 65. Last week’s published ratio of 62.7 was built on the September feeder and September corn contracts. December corn trades above September corn by design — that is the carry — so a meaningful part of the 3.1-point drop is the calendar roll rather than a change in feeding economics. Honest Cattle is not going to present all 3.1 points as real. What is real: the ratio has moved toward the expensive-corn end of its ten-year band, and a lower ratio means feeders are dear relative to corn, which historically squeezes what a feedlot can bid for a replacement calf.

SIDEBAR — FEEDER/CORN RATIO -> MONTANA CALF BID
This week:  59.6  (Oct feeders $320.15 / Dec corn $5.3675; 10-yr avg ~55-65)
Prior week: 62.7  (Sep feeders / Sep corn) - NOT an apples-to-apples pair;
            part of the 3.1-point move is the December-corn carry, not price
Per 1.0-point move:  +/-$0.20-0.35/cwt  ·  +/-$1.20-2.10/head on a 600-lb calf
Direction this week: bearish for the calf bid, magnitude discounted for the roll
Lag: 1-2 weeks

Reading that sidebar in plain English. The feeder/corn ratio is simply the price of a hundredweight of feeder cattle divided by the price of a bushel of corn. It is a single number that answers one question: how expensive are cattle relative to the feed it takes to finish them? A high ratio means cattle are dear and corn is cheap, which squeezes the feedlot. A low ratio means the reverse. Ten years of history put the normal range at roughly 55 to 65. At 59.6 we are below the middle of that range and headed the wrong way for the calf seller — each full point of decline has historically been worth about 20 to 35 cents per hundredweight against the Montana calf bid, or roughly $1.20 to $2.10 a head on a 600-pound calf, showing up within a sale week or two.

Feed-cost pass-through check (MSU AMPC / Marsh method, re-estimated by Honest Cattle)

Each 10 percent move up in corn shaves about 2 percent off calf value with fed-cattle prices held constant. Each 10 percent move up in fed-cattle prices lifts calf value about 14 percent. That second number is where the calf market’s real leverage lives: fed cattle move the calf far harder than corn does.

Running the current read: with corn near $4.28 per bushel on a monthly-average basis (down 4 percent year over year) and fed cattle up 11 percent year over year, the model implies Montana feeder prices should be running about 16.7 percent above a year ago. Montana 600–649 pound feeder steers are actually running 16.8 percent above a year ago, which leaves about one-tenth of a point as herd-cycle scarcity premium — essentially nothing beyond what feed and fed-cattle prices already explain. In plain terms: today’s calf price is bought and paid for by cheap-ish corn and strong fed cattle, not by an extra premium for a small herd. That is worth knowing, because it means the calf price has no scarcity cushion under it if either of those two supports gives way — and the fed-cattle support gave a little this week.

Method borrowed from Montana State University’s Agricultural Marketing Policy Center (John Marsh); elasticities re-estimated by Honest Cattle on 2000-present USDA data (n = 319 monthly observations; levels R² = 0.961; out-of-sample backtest MAPE 7.4 percent on 2023-forward data). The actual comparison uses Montana AMS_1778 auction prices, not national NASS calves. This is a descriptive association, not a price forecast and not trading advice. Data as of the July 2026 monthly read; computed September 5, 2026.

4. Futures and Options Activity

1. Tape

October feeder cattle $320.15 (−95¢); October live cattle $212.95 (−$1.35); December corn $5.36¾ (−4¢), all Friday, September 4, 2026 settles. Everything below is what those three numbers do not tell you.

2. Flow Quality

Contract-level volume and open-interest detail could not be captured for this edition, so rather than restate a stale figure, here is what the CFTC’s own report carries as of Tuesday, September 1: total open interest of 1,764,182 contracts in corn, 300,731 in live cattle and 64,359 in feeder cattle. Corn’s open interest is up sharply from 1,707,706 a week earlier — money coming in, not leaving. Feeder cattle open interest slipped from 69,166 to 64,359, which is liquidation rather than fresh conviction, and it fits a market that drifted this week rather than broke.

3. Ownership

This uses Honest Cattle’s own automated paper-market feed, rebuilt at 7:00 p.m. tonight from the CFTC’s disaggregated Commitments of Traders report — positions as of Tuesday, September 1, 2026, released Friday, September 4. That is the most current report available. Percentiles are ranked against 609 archived weekly reports.

Corn is the story, and it is now a record. The funds — the managed-money crowd, who are speculators rather than anybody who owns or feeds cattle — are net long 401,003 corn contracts, up 83,555 on the week. That is the 100th percentile of 609 archived weekly reports: the largest managed-money net long position in corn in the entire history Honest Cattle has on file. It is held by only 113 traders on the long side, about 4,140 contracts each. A record crowded long in the one commodity that sets the ceiling on what a feedlot can pay for a calf is a genuine risk in both directions — if the corn rally keeps going, calf bids keep getting squeezed; if that position unwinds in a hurry, corn falls fast and the calf bid gets room back.

Live cattle positioning is unremarkable and getting lighter. The funds are net long 48,851 live cattle contracts, down 10,878 on the week, at the 35.3rd percentile — below the middle of eleven-plus years of history. On the other side, the packers and feedlots — the people who actually own cattle and use the futures market as insurance rather than as a bet — are net short 88,111 contracts. That short position is not a wager that the market falls; it is a price lock on cattle they already own. The index money, the funds that hold a fixed basket of commodities, is net long 67,229 contracts.

Feeder cattle positioning is moderate and barely moved. The funds are net long 8,436 feeder contracts, down 450 on the week, at the 69.5th percentile — elevated but nowhere near crowded. Concentration is ordinary: the largest four traders hold 14.2 percent of the long side and 16.0 percent of the short side.

The single most material ownership fact this week is that a record fund long in corn sits opposite a shrinking fund long in cattle. Set against the flow read in Module 2 — corn open interest building while feeder open interest liquidates — the money is voting for feed and away from cattle. That is precisely the configuration that squeezes a calf bid, and it is the paper-market half of the reason Honest Cattle cut the bands in Section 2.

4. Curve

The board’s own gross feeding margin on Honest Cattle’s standard animal — 12.5 × October live cattle, minus 7.5 × October feeders, minus 55 bushels × December corn — works out to 12.5 × $212.95 − 7.5 × $320.15 − 0.55 × $536.75 = $2,661.88 − $2,401.13 − $295.21 = −$34.46 per head. Last week the same calculation, on the then-leading September feeder and September corn contracts, produced −$41.85. The board is still pricing a loss on a standard feeding run, but a smaller one — an improvement of $7.39 a head, and that is understated, because December corn carries above September corn and this week’s math absorbs that heavier corn leg. Always read this figure as gross of non-feed costs: yardage, interest, death loss and labor come out of it. A board that prices a loss on feeding is a board that tells feedlots to bid less for replacement calves.

On basis: October live cattle at $212.95 sits about $6.30 under the last published 5-Area live weighted average of $219.25 (week ending August 30). Futures trading under cash says the board expects fed cattle to come down to meet the board rather than the other way around.

8. Translation and Disclosure

Net read for a Montana calf seller: a record fund long in corn, a shrinking fund long in feeders, a still-negative board feeding margin and futures priced under cash all point the same way — a modest headwind on what a feedlot can pay for a calf over the next one to four weeks, on the order of $1.00 to $2.00 per hundredweight, or $6 to $12 a head on a 600-pound calf. The offsetting fact is that a record-crowded position is also a fragile one: a corn liquidation would hand that money straight back.

Honest Cattle holds no futures or options positions and recommends none. This section interprets public market data so a producer can understand what the paper market is saying; it is not trading advice.

The LRP Corner

Livestock Risk Protection is federal price insurance sold through crop-insurance agents. Economically it works like a put option — it sets a floor under a price without any margin calls — and the federal government subsidizes 35 to 55 percent of the premium depending on the coverage level you pick.

USDA’s Risk Management Agency rates are current as of the sales-effective date of Friday, September 4, 2026 (this is a Sunday build, so Friday is the last day rates were published). For Montana feeder steers in weight class 2 — 600 to 900 pounds — with a December 4, 2026 end date, a 13-week term, top coverage at 100 percent prices a floor of $312.15 per hundredweight at an after-subsidy producer premium of $9.18/cwt, or $55.10 on a 600-pound calf. Step down to 95 percent coverage and the floor is $296.54 for a producer premium of $4.41/cwt, or $26.46 a head. For a later January 1, 2027 end date (17 weeks), the 100-percent floor is $309.00 at a producer premium of $10.14/cwt, or $60.81 a head. Lighter calves under 600 pounds price higher on both sides: the December 4 end date at 100 percent coverage carries a $343.36 floor at $10.10/cwt, or $58.07 on a 575-pound calf.

Set that against the market: October feeders settled at $320.15 and this report’s newly cut Q4 2026 band for 600–649 pound Montana calves runs $413 to $448. LRP’s floor is well under both, which is what tail insurance is supposed to look like — it does not pay for an ordinary bad week, it pays for a wreck. Two cautions every week, and they do not change. LRP settles on the CME Feeder Cattle Index at the end date, not on what your calves actually brought at your barn, so basis risk stays with you. And rates reset every business day off the futures close, so a quote is good for a day. Honest Cattle recommends neither buying nor skipping LRP; this is published public rate information, not advice.

5. Cash Fed Cattle and Basis Context

Cash fed cattle traded through the holiday-shortened week at $344 to $345 dressed in the North, steady to $1 lower than the prior week’s weighted averages, and $219 to $223 live in the South, a range running $3 lower to $1 higher against the previous week. Friday’s direct trade was quiet, which is normal ahead of a long weekend.

USDA’s official 5-Area Weekly Weighted Average Direct Slaughter Cattle report (AMS_2477 / LM_CT150) most recently published the week ending Sunday, August 30, 2026: 51,429 head confirmed, down from 53,592 the week before and up from 42,848 a year ago. Steers on a live FOB basis averaged $219.25 per hundredweight across 18,220 head at an average weight of 1,548 pounds; dressed delivered steers averaged $345.42 across 18,742 head. Heifers averaged $219.66 live and $345.16 dressed. The report covering the just-ended week posts Monday, September 7 — one day after this build — so the current week’s cash read above comes from confirmed trade reporting rather than the weekly summary, and it is dated accordingly.

Basis. October live cattle at $212.95 sits $6.30 under the last official 5-Area live average of $219.25. Futures under cash means the board is not paying up for fed cattle it expects to be cheaper by delivery. For a Montana cow-calf operation that reads through in one step: the feedlot buying your calf this fall is pricing the fat steer it will sell in the spring off that board, not off today’s cash.

Translation to the Montana calf bid. A dollar-lower dressed market and a board sitting $6.30 under cash is worth roughly $0.20 to $0.40 per hundredweight against the 600-pound Montana calf bid on a two-to-four-week lag — call it $1 to $2 a head. Small on its own. It matters because it is pointing the same direction as the corn position, the video book and the cutout.

6. Montana Weekly Auction Data

Six of Montana’s twelve licensed markets sold in the window of August 30 through September 5, 3,373 head in all, and the fall calf run opened: Public Auction Yards sold 1,423 head on Wednesday with 568-pound unweaned steers at $392.32 and 627-pound steers at $368.34, while yearlings off grass stayed the bright spot at $371.27 for 769-pound steers. The cow trade was the week’s casualty — slaughter cows $8.00 to $10.00 lower statewide, feeding cows $4.00 to $8.00 lower, and Public Auction Yards $15.00 to $20.00 lower on breaking-flesh cows against its previous sale, with Canadian buyers still taking feeding cows north.

The full barn-by-barn roster lives on the website, and it is the better place for it. All twelve licensed markets are accounted for there every week — the six that sold with head counts and class prices, the three that did not hold a sale, and the three that publish nothing machine-readable — along with lot-level detail and the downloadable edition dataset: honestcattle.net/montana-weekly-auction-results, updated every Saturday and current through September 5.

Translation to the Montana calf bid. Those unweaned barn calves are not the load-lot cattle the quarterly bands describe — see Section 2 for why that gap is running $60 to $80 per hundredweight right now. The number to carry out of this section is the cow market: on a 1,350-pound cull cow, $10 per hundredweight is $135 a head, and it went two weeks running.

7. Video Auction Results — Seasonal

This is the section this week’s band cut came out of. Superior Livestock sold 41,129 head on Friday, September 4, and USDA’s summary of that sale is the reason the bands moved: feeder steers were lightly tested for current delivery but the few that traded went $10.00 to $20.00 lower, and the much larger forward book — the bulk of the calf trade — carried a lower undertone through the deferred delivery months. Honest Cattle’s own Montana-only forward read, built lot by lot from sales through August 21, still has 600–649 pound Montana steer calves at $433.17 for October delivery, $439.14 for November and $446.15 for December; that is the book the September 4 sale has now marked down, and Section 2 sizes the cut off the market’s own range rather than a guess.

The caution that misleads people every year. The Superior figures pool all regions, and 61 percent of that sale came out of the drought-forced South Central. Read the direction as the Montana signal, never the level. Video prices are also forward prices for cattle that ship later, sold on a base weight with a one-way slide — 28 cents a pound over 600 pounds on this sale — not a spot Montana cash bid.

Full house-by-house history, terms, and the Montana-only series: honestcattle.net/montana-video-cattle-auction-trends, current through September 4.

8. Feedlot profitability using today’s Montana calf prices

Full break-even math this week, on an actual USDA-reported Montana purchase price rather than an estimate. The deepest real Montana steer print available is from AMS Report 1778 for the week ending August 29, 2026: 66 head of 762–778 pound steers, average weight 769 pounds, at a weighted average of $371.27 per hundredweight.

The math, step by step. Buying that steer costs 7.69 cwt × $371.27 = $2,854.87 a head. Feeding him from 769 pounds to a 1,400-pound finished weight is 631 pounds of gain. At December corn of $5.36¾ per bushel — $191.70 a ton — a commercial yard’s all-in cost of gain, including feed, yardage, interest, medicine and death loss, runs about $1.10 per pound, so 631 pounds of gain costs $694.10. Total invested: $3,548.97. Divide by 14.00 hundredweight of finished steer and the break-even is $253.50 per hundredweight live.

Now price the other end. That steer finishes roughly seven months out, which lines up with the April 2027 live cattle contract at $217.55. Break-even $253.50 against $217.55 is a loss of $35.95 per hundredweight, or $503.30 a head. Even against the nearby October contract at $212.95 the answer is worse, not better.

What that number actually means, because it is a big one. It does not mean feedlots are about to lose $500 a head. It means today’s Montana yearling price and today’s deferred fed-cattle board cannot both be right. Three things can close that gap: fed cattle rally, corn falls, or feeder and calf prices come down — and over the last eight weeks the market has been choosing the third one. That is the mechanism behind this week’s band cut in Section 2, and it is why a feedlot’s arithmetic, not a packer’s, is the binding constraint on what a Montana calf brings this fall. The packer’s side of the chain is the next section; the two margins move on different clocks and should not be read as one number.

9. Boxed Beef Cutout and Packer Economics

USDA’s National Weekly Boxed Beef Cutout report (AMS_2461 / LM_XB459) for the week ending Friday, September 4, 2026 put the Choice cutout at a weekly average of $377.49 per hundredweight, down $5.90 from the prior week, and the Select cutout at $355.82, down $7.57. The published Choice–Select spread for the week is $21.67, against $20.00 the week before — a widening of $1.67. On Friday alone Choice was $376.17 (down 73 cents) and Select was $355.87 (up $5.15) for a daily spread of $20.30. Total load count for the week was 577.

Measurement note, so the series reads straight. Recent editions have quoted the spread sometimes from a single day’s print and sometimes from the weekly report. From this edition forward Honest Cattle quotes the weekly AMS_2461 average, which is why this week’s $21.67 does not line up with the $26.19 daily reading quoted on August 20. Both were real; they were not the same measure. The August 20 daily print was a genuine record and the spread has genuinely come off it.

What a $21.67 spread means. Below about $5 the market is telling you it cannot distinguish good beef from ordinary beef. Above about $8 retailers are actively bidding up for quality. At $21.67 the quality market is still historically strong — nearly three times the level at which quality starts getting paid for — and it widened this week even as both cutouts fell, which is the more useful signal. Select fell harder than Choice. The primal detail says the same thing: the Choice rib primal averaged $637.67 against Select’s $522.14, a $115 gap on the single primal that carries the most grade sensitivity.

SIDEBAR — CHOICE-SELECT SPREAD -> MONTANA CALF BID
This week:  $21.67/cwt  (weekly avg, AMS_2461, wk ending 2026-09-04)
Prior week: $20.00/cwt  ·  change +$1.67
Per $1/cwt move:  $0.65-0.85/cwt on a 600-lb calf  ·  $4-5/head verified-program
This week's move: +$1.09 to +$1.42/cwt  ·  +$7 to +$8/head on verified calves
Direction: BULLISH for verified-quality calf bids
Lag: 5-9 months

SIDEBAR — PACKER GROSS MARGIN -> MONTANA CALF BID
This week:  $32.99/cwt  (Choice cutout $377.49 - dressed fed cash $344.50)
Prior week: $37.89/cwt  ·  change -$4.90/cwt
Per $1/cwt expansion:  +$0.20-0.40/cwt  ·  +$1.20-2.40/head on a 600-lb calf
This week's move: -$0.98 to -$1.96/cwt  ·  -$6 to -$12/head
Direction: BEARISH - margin narrowing from an unusually wide level
Lag: 2-4 weeks

Reading those two sidebars in plain English. The Choice–Select spread, abbreviated nowhere in this report but often written C/S, is the price gap between Choice-grade beef and Select-grade beef. It is the clearest market signal that quality gets paid, and it flows back to a rancher through the packer’s grid. Every dollar that spread widens is worth about 65 to 85 cents per hundredweight on a verified-quality 600-pound Montana calf — roughly $4 to $5 a head — arriving five to nine months later, when that calf reaches the rail. This week’s $1.67 widening is worth about $7 to $8 a head.

PGM is packer gross margin — the gap between what a packer sells a carcass for (the cutout) and what it paid for the animal (fed cattle cash, put on the same carcass basis). It is gross, meaning labor, plant costs and everything else still come out of it. On an 887-pound carcass, a $32.99 per hundredweight margin is about $293 a head of gross spread. That is still a good week for a packer by historical standards, and a packer making $293 a head is a packer that keeps bidding for cattle. But it narrowed $4.90 this week, and a narrowing margin means slightly less appetite to bid — worth about $6 to $12 a head against the Montana calf in two to four weeks.

The bigger packer-margin story, in context and labeled as an estimate. Between August 1 and September 3, 2026 the packer’s position swung about as hard as it ever swings. Independent industry estimates put the packer margin near minus $200 a head at the start of August and near plus $250 a head by September 3 — roughly a $450-a-head swing in five weeks. That figure is an industry estimate, not an official USDA number, and Honest Cattle labels it as such. The verified pieces behind it are real: 5-Area live cash was $217.88 to $218.00 on September 2, the Choice cutout was $379.75 on September 1 with a five-day average of $381.42 for August 25–31, and the CME Feeder Cattle Index was $329.18 on September 3. The mechanism was equally real — cattle got cheaper while beef held, and packing capacity came out of the system at the same time. This week’s numbers show the swing rolling back over: the cutout is falling faster than cash is, and the margin has started to give ground.

Grass-Fed Beef

USDA’s National Retail Report — Beef (AMS_3228) for the ad period August 29 through September 10 gives the cleanest current read on what the grass-fed channel is paying at the meat case. Antibiotic-free grass-fed 80–89 percent ground beef in 1–2 pound packages advertised at $7.36 per pound across 1,254 stores, against $6.24 for the conventional equivalent in 3,635 stores — a premium of $1.12 a pound, or 17.9 percent. Grass-fed boneless ribeye advertised at $22.92 across 942 stores against $18.18 conventional in 2,232 stores, a premium of $4.74 a pound, or 26.1 percent. Certified organic grass-fed ground ran $6.69 to $7.99 depending on pack.

Year over year the grass-fed premium is compressing, not expanding: that same grass-fed ground was $7.99 a pound a year ago and is $7.36 now, down 7.9 percent, while conventional ground rose from $5.95 to $6.24, up 4.9 percent. The Montana translation is uncomfortable but honest. The grass-fed channel still pays a real premium — call it $1.10 a pound at retail on ground — but the gap is closing from both ends as commodity beef gets expensive. For a Montana cow-calf operation weighing whether to chase a grass-finished program, the premium is narrowing while the commodity calf market is falling; the spread between the two is holding roughly steady in dollars, which means the program premium is doing less work than it was a year ago. Honest Cattle’s own dedicated grass-fed price tracker produced no new output file this run — that is a disclosed gap, and the figures above come straight from the USDA retail report instead.

Grocery-Store Action

The same AMS_3228 report is a direct read on consumer demand, and this week it was strong. The national Feature Rate was 89.2 percent (89.5 percent the prior week, 77.6 percent a year ago) across 25,521 outlets, and the Activity Index jumped 12.5 percent to 108,962 from 96,833. Rib items led the increase into the Labor Day holiday, with bone-in and boneless ribeye steaks doing most of the lifting. Bone-in ribeye averaged $14.50 a pound against $12.60 a year ago, up 15.1 percent — and retailers still chose to feature it hard.

That matters for the calf bid. A retailer that features expensive ribeye into a holiday is a retailer that believes the consumer will pay, and that belief is what holds the cutout up and keeps the packer bidding. The counterweight is in the ground-beef line: 80–89 percent ground in 2–4 pound packs advertised at $5.88 against $5.27 a year ago, up 11.6 percent. Ground beef is where the tariff-free import program in Section 17 aims, and where a Montana cull cow’s value actually lives.

10. Cattle Slaughter and Packer Margins

Federally inspected cattle slaughter for the week ending Saturday, September 5, 2026 was 526,000 head, down 3.0 percent from 542,000 the week before and up 6.5 percent from 494,000 a year ago. Beef production was 465.7 million pounds, down 2.7 percent on the week and up 7.7 percent on the year. Estimated average live weight was 1,442 pounds and dressed weight 887 pounds, against 1,431 and 878 a year ago — cattle are coming in about nine pounds heavier on the rail.

Do not read that plus-6.5 percent as a supply signal. Labor Day fell on Monday, September 7 this year and on Monday, September 1 last year. Last year’s comparable week contained the holiday and this year’s did not. The honest year-over-year read is the year-to-date figure: 18,475,000 head through September 5 against 19,970,000 a year ago, down 7.5 percent. That is the structural number, and it has not changed direction.

The August 21 Cattle on Feed report remains the governing supply fact and it has not been superseded: cattle and calves on feed totaled 11.1 million head on August 1, up 2 percent year over year; July placements were 1.42 million head, down 11 percent and the lowest July placement number since the series began in 1996; July marketings were 1.62 million head, down 7 percent. More cattle on feed today, historically few fresh ones coming in behind them. That is the reason this report’s forward signal reads bullish even in a week the near-term tape is soft. The next Cattle on Feed report is due later in September.

SIDEBAR — SLAUGHTER + PLACEMENTS -> MONTANA CALF BID
Slaughter this week: 526,000 head (wk ending 2026-09-05)
   -3.0% week over week  ·  +6.5% year over year - CALENDAR DISTORTED
   (Labor Day fell inside last year's comparable week, not this year's)
Year-to-date slaughter: 18,475,000 head, -7.5% YoY - the structural read
Latest monthly placements: 1.42 million head, July 2026, -11% YoY (record low July)
Per 1% slaughter decline:  +$0.50-1.00/cwt  ·  +$3-6/head   (4-8 wk lag)
Per 1% placement decline:  +$0.50-1.50/cwt  ·  +$3-9/head   (5-9 mo lag)
Direction near-term: NEUTRAL (no genuine YoY decline this week)
Direction forward:   STRONGLY BULLISH on the record-low placement number

Reading that sidebar in plain English. Fewer cattle killed means fewer boxes of beef, which means packers competing harder for the cattle that exist — which is why a sustained drop in the kill supports cash fed cattle and, four to eight weeks later, the calf bid. Placements are the cattle going into feedlots this month; they become the kill five to nine months from now, which is why a record-low July placement number is a tailwind for calves sold this fall and finished next spring. The codified per-one-percent rates above are calibrated on ordinary swings; an 11 percent placement decline is far outside ordinary, so treat it as a large directional tailwind rather than multiplying it out to a precise dollar figure.

Packing capacity is still leaving the system, and Montana still has one plant to watch. Tyson confirmed on August 13 that it is closing its Joslin, Illinois harvest plant — roughly 3,000 head a day, about 2,500 jobs, after 43 years — and its Eagle Mountain, Utah case-ready plant, while pursuing a sale rather than a closure of its Pasco, Washington beef plant, about 2,000 head a day. JBS ended slaughter at Souderton, Pennsylvania around August 14, pivoting that site to a $30 million case-ready investment rather than closing it outright. Cargill’s Fort Morgan, Colorado plant, down since May over a labor dispute, restarted in phases with slaughter resuming around September 3 through 7 — the one piece of capacity coming back rather than going away.

Pasco is the Montana exposure and it is still unresolved. Pasco is the Pacific Northwest’s principal fed-cattle and cull-cow outlet and a standing destination for Montana cattle. No buyer has been reported. If that sale fails and the plant closes, Pacific Northwest basis widens, Montana freight runs east toward Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado instead, and Montana loses a bidder on cull cows in the same season those cows are already selling $8 to $10 lower. Say the structural part plainly too: fewer plants in fewer hands is worse for cash-market competition even in a week when the near-term margin arithmetic is fine for the plants that remain.

11. Texas Auction Data and Secondary Market

USDA’s Texas Weekly Cattle Auction Summary (AMS_1955), published Friday, September 4 and covering August 30 through September 5, reported 4,782 head statewide, against 5,010 the prior reported week and 4,558 a year ago. Composition: 3,946 feeder cattle (82.5 percent), 585 slaughter cattle (12.2 percent), 251 replacement cattle (5.2 percent). Within feeders the split was 49 percent steers, 42 percent heifers and 8 percent bulls, with 52 percent of the feeder supply over 600 pounds.

The trade: steer and heifer calves sold $3.00 to $15.00 lower, with USDA attributing it directly to drought — most Texas pastures are in poor enough shape that turning calves out on grass is not an option, so they go to town. Yearlings were not well tested. Demand was light to moderate, and only for calves that were weaned and had their shots. Slaughter cows and bulls sold $5.00 to $10.00 lower.

Prices in the weight classes Montana cares about. Medium and Large 1 steers: 550–595 lb, 33 head, $341.68/cwt; 600–635 lb, 58 head, $339.23; a 35-head lot of thin-fleshed 621-pound steers at $359.00; 500–549 lb, 91 head, $375.30; 450–498 lb, 89 head, $413.73. Slaughter cows: Breaker 75–80 percent averaged $141.93 on average dressing (25 head) and $157.13 on high dressing (13 head); Boner 80–85 percent averaged $142.69 average dressing (37 head) and $157.32 high dressing (49 head); Lean 85–90 percent averaged $141.64 average dressing (26 head).

Market coverage, disclosed. AMS_1955 aggregates the reporting Texas markets including Navasota Livestock Auction, Honest Cattle’s primary Texas proxy. Brazos Valley Livestock Commission at Bryan — the secondary market and the better read on open cows — publishes its own results and was not independently pulled this run; that is a disclosed gap, not an estimate. No Missouri data appears in this section.

Translation to the Montana calf bid. Texas is running four to six weeks ahead of Montana in the fall calf run and is doing it under much worse grass. The direct comparison is stark and useful: Texas 600–635 pound steers brought $339.23 this week while Montana’s 604–645 pound steers brought $368.34 at Public Auction Yards — a Montana premium of about $29 per hundredweight, or roughly $180 a head on a 620-pound calf. That premium is what Montana grass, Montana genetics and a later, less-forced marketing calendar are worth right now. It is also a warning: what forced early marketing does to a calf price is visible in the Texas number, and Montana’s own drought footprint expanded again this week (Section 13).

12. Regional Weather Summary

Montana, statewide. The state is running a genuinely split pattern. Late-season rains have improved pasture across western Montana to the point that USDA’s own hay reporters note many ranchers there chose to graze fields rather than put up a third cutting, and yields in western and parts of central Montana got a real boost. The featured mover this week is on the other side of the state: the U.S. Drought Monitor expanded moderate drought or worse in Montana by 1.10 percentage points in the September 1 release, and that expansion is in the central and eastern counties, not the west. Billings Livestock’s own sale report on September 3 noted “many very light offerings were seen this sale as cattle were sold early due to dry conditions” — the clearest sign that eastern-side dryness has moved from a map statistic to a marketing decision.

The NWS gridpoint Honest Cattle uses as a south-central Montana reference point shows a wet, cool holiday and then a drying, warming week: showers and thunderstorms likely Labor Day with a 78 percent chance of precipitation and a high near 67, followed by clear nights in the mid-40s and sunny days climbing from 69 on Tuesday to 80 by Thursday. That is a useful pattern for a rancher weaning calves — a wet, cool day into a dry, warming week is far easier on a freshly weaned calf than the reverse.

Southeast Texas. The NWS gridpoint used as a southeast Texas reference shows daily highs of 94 to 96 degrees with overnight lows of 78 to 79 and only isolated thunderstorm chances of 16 to 24 percent through the period. That is continued heat stress with no meaningful drought relief, and it is consistent with the forced early marketing showing up in Section 11’s Texas prices.

Both gridpoints above are reference points for regional pattern, not county forecasts. For your own county’s seven-day forecast, SNOTEL, soil moisture, Drought Monitor detail and range condition, use your county page on honestcattle.net.

Translation to the Montana calf bid. Weather works on the calf bid through two channels: how much grass is left, and how many calves get pushed to town early. Western Montana’s late rain buys a few weeks of flexibility. Eastern Montana’s expanding dryness is already pulling light calves forward, and a light calf sold early into a falling market is the most expensive mistake available right now — Section 7’s video markdown says the market being sold into is $10 to $20 per hundredweight cheaper than it was three weeks ago, which is $60 to $120 a head on a 600-pound calf.

13. Moisture, Snowpack, Range — See County Page

Montana’s Drought Severity and Coverage Index stands at 171 in the September 1, 2026 U.S. Drought Monitor release, against 170 on August 25 and 171 on August 18 — effectively flat over three weeks, but flat at a high level. The area breakdown moved slightly the wrong way: 92.52 percent of the state is abnormally dry or worse (unchanged), 56.71 percent is in moderate drought or worse, up 1.10 percentage points on the week, 17.49 percent is in severe drought or worse (unchanged), 4.40 percent is in extreme drought (unchanged) and no part of the state is in exceptional drought. USDA’s own Montana hay report this week cites the same figures and adds that the D1-or-worse footprint is up 2.12 points over two weeks.

Nationally the picture is a touch worse as well: across the lower 48, 59.05 percent of the area was in moderate drought or worse in the September 1 release against 56.61 percent on August 25, while the extreme and exceptional categories eased slightly, from 11.76 to 11.38 percent and from 1.75 to 1.71 percent.

Montana SNOTEL, county-level Drought Monitor readings, soil moisture and range condition are not republished here — they live on the auto-updating county pages at honestcattle.net, including the ten-year Park County snowpack history at honestcattle.net/ten-year-history-of-snowpack-in-park-county-montana. Early September is the seasonal low point for snowpack data and the beginning of the water year that decides next summer’s grass; the number to watch starts building in November.

14. Range Forage Outlook and Feeder Marketing Implications

The range signal this week is a split one: western Montana improved on late rain, central and eastern Montana got 1.10 points drier, and a Billings sale report explicitly names dry conditions as the reason light calves came to town early. Combined with Section 7’s forward-market markdown and Section 22’s hay economics, that produces five specific marketing decisions, priced.

1. If your grass is gone, sell — but sell weaned and sorted, not straight off the cow. This week’s Montana barns paid $392.32 for 568-pound unweaned steers and $441.94 for 461–489 pound steers, while the load-lot video book for Montana calves is still working in the $413–$448 range for the fall (Sections 6 and 7). The gap between an unweaned single-lot calf and a weaned, shot, uniform load lot is running $40 to $70 per hundredweight in this market — $240 to $420 a head on a 600-pound calf. Forty-five days of weaning is the highest-return work available on most Montana outfits right now.
2. Do not wait on a bounce to price fall delivery. The forward book has now been marked down twice — $25 to $35 per hundredweight at the August video sales and another $10 to $20 on September 4. Holding out has cost roughly $35 to $55 per hundredweight over six weeks, or $210 to $330 a head on a 600-pound calf. The corn position (Section 4) and the negative board feeding margin (Section 8) both argue the feedlot bid is not about to get more generous on its own.
3. Re-price LRP this week while rates are quoting normally. A December 4 end date at 95 percent coverage puts a $296.54 floor under a 600–900 pound feeder for $4.41 per hundredweight after subsidy — $26.46 on a 600-pound calf, or about six-tenths of one percent of that calf’s value at this week’s band midpoint (Section 4). Rates reset daily; this is a quote, not a standing offer.
4. Cull deep now, and understand you have already missed the top. Montana slaughter cows sold $8.00 to $10.00 lower this week and Public Auction Yards was $15.00 to $20.00 lower on breaking-flesh cows against its previous sale. On a 1,350-pound cow, $10 per hundredweight is $135 a head. Feeding-cow demand and Canadian buying are both still active but both softened, and the import program in Section 17 opened its first 100,000-tonne tranche on September 1 aimed squarely at the lean grinding market that sets a cull cow’s floor. Waiting for the cow market to come back is a bet against a policy that is already in force.
5. Do not background on purchased hay without doing the arithmetic first. Montana alfalfa traded at $250 a ton FOB this week (Section 22). At an 18-pound daily ration that is $2.25 a day in feed alone; at 1.75 pounds of gain a day that is $1.29 per pound of gain before yardage, and the market is currently paying roughly 60 to 75 cents per pound of added weight between the 550–599 and 650–699 weight classes. Backgrounding on bought hay at these prices loses money on every pound. Backgrounding on your own standing forage is a different question with a different answer.

15. Bred Cattle and Cull Cow Data

Montana replacement composition, and it is the most bullish forward number in this report. AMS_1778 for the week ending August 29 reported 173 head of replacement cattle: 11 percent stock cows, 43 percent bred cows, 40 percent bred heifers and 6 percent cow-calf pairs. Combined bred share is 83 percent — well above the 75 percent threshold at which Honest Cattle’s codified rule reads active retention. That is a sharp reversal from the prior week’s 69 percent stock-cow, 15 percent bred reading on a 79-head sample, and it is on more than twice the head count.

Montana bred prices. Bred cows aged 2 to 4 in the first trimester brought $3,076.40 a head across 12 head; 2-to-8-year-old first-trimester cows brought $2,950.00 across 9 head; broken-mouth cows over 8 brought $2,500.00 across 28 head. Bred heifers under 2 in the first trimester brought $2,766.73 across 50 head, with a 7-head lot at $3,000.00. Cow-calf pairs with 150–300 pound calves brought $3,500.00 for the aged-over-5 group. Stock cows — open females — brought $227.60 per hundredweight for the under-2 group, about $2,750 on a 1,208-pound cow.

Montana cull cows, all three USDA grades. On average dressing: Breaker 75–80 percent $153.50 (2 head, thin); Boner 80–85 percent $147.42 (6 head); Lean 85–90 percent had no clean average-dressing print. The deep prints this week were all in the return-to-feed category, which is where Montana’s cow trade actually lives right now: Breaker return-to-feed $161.21 across 22 head, Boner return-to-feed $165.81 across 195 head, Lean return-to-feed $163.83 across 56 head. Week over week, USDA reported slaughter cows generally $8.00 to $10.00 lower across all offerings and feeding cows $4.00 to $8.00 lower.

National benchmark. USDA’s 5-Area direct slaughter report does not carry cow classes, so the cleanest cross-region comparison this week is Texas: Boner 80–85 percent cows averaged $142.69 on average dressing there against Montana’s $165.81 return-to-feed print, a Montana advantage of about $23 per hundredweight — roughly $310 a head on a 1,350-pound cow. Montana’s cow market is falling, but it is falling from a much higher level than the drought-forced South.

Texas bred and replacement trade. AMS_1955 reported Texas replacement composition at 17 percent stock cows, 70 percent bred cows, 1 percent bred heifers, 3 percent open heifers and 10 percent cow-calf pairs on 251 head. Bred heifers aged 2 to 4 in the second trimester brought $2,331.27; open stock cows aged 5 to 8 brought $2,394.46 a head; cow-calf pairs aged 2 to 4 with 150–300 pound calves brought $3,846.14. Texas bred heifers at $2,331 against Montana’s $2,767 is a $436-a-head Montana premium on the same class.

SIDEBAR — REPLACEMENT COMPOSITION -> CULL-COW + FORWARD CALF VALUE
This week: stock cows 11% · bred cows 43% · bred heifers 40% · pairs 6%
           (n = 173 head, AMS_1778 wk ending 2026-08-29)
Cull-cow read (current week): stock-cow share of 11% is BELOW the 15% line,
  which the codified rule reads as tight cull supply and a firm cull market
  (+$3 to +$8/cwt).  THAT RULE IS NOT APPLIED THIS WEEK - actual Montana
  slaughter cows sold $8-10 LOWER.  The contradiction is flagged, not resolved
  by fiat: supply is tight and the market fell anyway, because the buyer side
  (packers, feeding-cow buyers, Canadian orders) all pulled back at once.
Forward calf read (7-10 months): combined bred share of 83% is ABOVE the 75%
  active-retention line -> +$3 to +$8/cwt · +$18 to +$48/head on a 600-lb calf
  in the 7-10 month delivery window.  APPLIED.
Sample caution: 173 head is small.  Directional, not precise.

Reading that sidebar in plain English. Replacement cattle are the females that go back to a ranch rather than to a feedlot, and USDA splits them into stock cows (open — not bred), bred cows, bred heifers and cow-calf pairs. Two different signals live in that split. A high open-cow share means a lot of females are being culled right now, which floods the cull market and pushes cull prices down inside two or three weeks. A high bred share means producers are buying pregnant females, which is a bet on calves seven to ten months out and tightens the calf supply in that window. This week Montana’s bred share was 83 percent — the strongest retention signal this section has carried in some time, and the single best forward argument against cutting the bands harder than we did. That signal is a real one: those buyers put roughly $2,800 to $3,100 a head of their own money behind it.

16. New World Screwworm Status

The verified international numbers. Central American countries and Mexico have now reported more than 209,400 New World screwworm cases in animals and more than 2,500 cases in people. Those are the figures APHIS is working from, and they are the reason the U.S. eradication and border programs exist in their current form.

The U.S. count, disclosed honestly. APHIS publishes its U.S. case dashboard as an interactive embed that Honest Cattle’s automated pull cannot read, and the page carrying it was last modified July 12, 2026. The most recent U.S. count this report was able to verify remains 47 animal cases across 17 counties in two states, with 2 cases active, as carried in the prior edition. That figure is dated and is not restated here as fresh. What was independently confirmed this week: APHIS examines all wildlife captured in high-risk Texas counties, more than 1,600 wild animals have been examined to date with no evidence of infestation, and the original U.S. detection remains the June 3, 2026 case in a three-week-old calf in Zavala County, Texas.

The border. USDA reopened the Douglas, Arizona port to Mexican cattle imports on August 24, 2026, the first in a planned phased reopening of southern ports, each step contingent on satisfactory progress against the joint Action Plan’s milestones. No further port reopening was confirmed this week.

Translation to the Montana calf bid. A milestone-gated, phased reopening is modestly bearish for Montana feeder values over a six-to-eighteen-month horizon, because Mexican feeder cattle are direct competition for southern feedlot pen space that would otherwise bid on northern cattle. It started small — on the order of 700 head a day at Douglas — so the near-term effect on a Montana calf bid is under $1 per hundredweight and is not why the bands moved this week. The number that would matter is a full multi-port reopening at pre-closure volumes, which is not on the table yet. Risk runs the other way too: a case-count jump in Texas pauses or reverses the whole schedule.

17. Import and Tariff Landscape

The import program stopped being a rumor this week. It is now in force. On August 26, 2026 the President signed a proclamation titled Further Ensuring Affordable Beef for the American Consumer. It creates an additional 300,000 metric tons of duty-free beef import quota, released in three monthly tranches of 100,000 tonnes each: the first opened September 1 and closes September 30; the second runs October 1 to October 30; the third opens October 31 and stays open until filled or November 30, whichever comes first. The quota applies to lean beef trimmings only, on specified tariff lines covering fresh and frozen, organic and other. Importers are directed to sell the product at a 25 percent discount to the prevailing import price. The proclamation does not modify commitments to countries with a U.S. free trade agreement and does not apply to countries that already hold country-specific beef quotas.

What that actually hits. Lean beef trimmings are the raw material for ground beef. They are not steaks, they are not the Choice middle meats holding the cutout up, and they are not fed cattle. They are, however, almost exactly what a Montana cull cow becomes. A cull cow’s value is set by the 90 percent lean grinding market, and that market is the direct target of 300,000 tonnes of duty-free supply arriving over 90 days. This report has said for three weeks that the risk sat in the cull-cow and grinding market rather than the fed-calf market; the first tranche opening on September 1 is the same week Montana slaughter cows sold $8.00 to $10.00 lower (Section 6). Those two facts are not proof of causation — the buyer-side pullback USDA described was broad — but the timing is not a coincidence worth ignoring either, and Montana feeders told USDA directly that “many private feeders worry of the impact additional meat imports will have on the fed cow market and adjusted sell prices reflected these uncertainties.”

The imported lean price repriced in the same week, and here is the print. USDA’s Import Beef Trade report (NW_LS421) for Friday, September 4 says it plainly: import prices were sharply lower on a very light test, trading activity was slow and virtually at a standstill from Australia/New Zealand, and weaker demand together with sharply lower domestic values pressured imported lean and trimmings prices. Read the quote sheet and that standstill is literal. Australia and New Zealand carried no 90 percent lean cow meat quote at all this week — the only Australian/New Zealand line USDA printed was bull meat at 95 percent lean, $365.00–$366.00 per hundredweight West Coast for 16-to-45-day delivery. The lean that did trade was South American: cow meat at 90 percent lean, $315.00–$329.00 East Coast for 0-to-15-day delivery and $305.00–$320.00 for 16-to-45-day delivery, with 85 percent beef trim at $305.00–$310.00 and $295.00–$300.00 across the same two windows.

Why that report matters more than any single number in it. The imported 90 percent lean price is the closest thing there is to a published floor under a Montana cull cow, because a cull cow is mostly 90 percent lean trim once it is broken down. Two things in this week’s report carry more weight than the price level. First, the sellers who normally set that price stopped selling. A standstill is not a low price; it is the absence of a price, and it happens when buyers step back because they expect something cheaper to show up. Second, the only lean actually being priced was South American — the origin the new duty-free quota most directly advantages. That is a market repricing ahead of physical volume rather than in response to it, which is exactly how a policy change reaches a sale barn before a single container clears a port.

What Honest Cattle will not do with that report. It will not publish a week-over-week dollar move on Australian/New Zealand 90 percent lean, because there is no Australian/New Zealand quote this week to move from. Comparing this week’s South American print against an Australian/New Zealand quote from earlier in the summer — 90 percent lean was in the $362 to $365 range in mid-July — would be comparing two different origins in two different weeks, and it would overstate the decline by a wide margin. On the like-for-like comparison that does exist, South American 90 percent lean for 0-to-15-day East Coast delivery came off roughly $7 per hundredweight at the midpoint against the prior week. The honest read is that the level moved modestly and the liquidity moved a great deal.

Montana is already feeling it, and there is one cushion left. This is now the second straight week of cow weakness in the state: USDA’s statewide summary for August 23–29 had slaughter cows $8.00 to $10.00 lower with feeders explicitly citing import worries in their sell decisions, and this week’s barn reports (Section 6) show weigh-up cows lower again nearly everywhere — Public Auction Yards $15.00 to $20.00 lower on breaking-flesh cows, Billings Livestock $8.00 to $10.00 lower on breakers, Headwaters calling its whole sale $4.00 to $6.00 lower. Two declines that size back to back, this early in a fall run that normally does not bottom until November, is faster than the ordinary seasonal slide. The cushion is the feeding-cow bid: return-to-feed Boner cows brought $165.81 against $147.42 for average-dressing slaughter cows in the same report — about $18 per hundredweight, roughly $245 a head on a 1,350-pound cow — and Canadian buyers are still taking those cows north. If you are culling, a cow with flesh left to add still has a competing bid that a straight slaughter cow does not. Watch that Canadian bid. If it disappears, the quota pressure has reached Montana in full, and the return-to-feed premium goes with it.

A separate action targeting meatpacking concentration was signaled around August 26 to 28 and has been reported in the trade press, but the specific mechanics were not confirmed in this run’s sourcing. Honest Cattle carries it as “concentration measures under development” and will price it when there is an order to read.

Import inspection, and why it matters more as volumes rise. The Class I recall of roughly 29,628 pounds of raw boneless beef imported from Argentina by Corte Argentino USA LLC — product that entered U.S. commerce without the required FSIS import reinspection — was covered in full in a prior edition and had no update this run. The point stands and gets larger with every tonne of new quota: USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, not the FDA, inspects meat and poultry, and FSIS reinspects every imported lot at the border on top of the exporting country’s own certification. FDA covers essentially all other food. Routine FSIS surveillance is what caught that lot. As 300,000 tonnes of additional duty-free trimmings move through the ports over the next 90 days, the reinspection system and honest origin labeling are the two things standing between a Montana rancher’s reputation and somebody else’s product. That is the same argument Farm Animal Transparency (FAT) makes on the label side at farmanimaltransparency.com.

Translation to the Montana calf bid. The direct hit is to cull cows, not calves: on a 1,350-pound cull cow, the $8 to $10 per hundredweight the Montana market gave up this week is $108 to $135 a head, and another $5 would be $68 more. The indirect route to the calf is through the cutout — cheaper grinding beef pulls on the 50 percent trim value inside the cutout, and a softer cutout means a softer packer bid (Section 9’s margin already narrowed $4.90 this week). Call the calf-bid effect $0.50 to $1.50 per hundredweight over four to eight weeks, or $3 to $9 a head, and hold that estimate loosely until the first tranche’s actual fill rate is published.

18. Packer Grid Pricing and Implications for Calf Prices

A typical packer grid pays a premium for Prime and for Certified Angus Beef (CAB), takes Choice as the base, and discounts Select. It then adjusts for yield grade — YG 1 through 5, a measure of how much saleable meat comes off the carcass, where YG 1 is leanest and best-paying and YG 4 and 5 are discounted — and discounts carcasses that are too heavy or too light for the plant’s specifications. Everything a Montana rancher does at breeding and weaning shows up in that grid five to nine months after the calf leaves.

The worked example, with this week’s numbers. The Choice–Select spread averaged $21.67 per hundredweight for the week ending September 4. On a 900-pound carcass that is 21.67 × 9 = $195.03 a head of grid premium captured by grading Choice instead of Select. About 70 percent of that flows back to the feedlot in grid earnings — call it $136.52 per fed steer. Spread across the 750-pound placement steer that produced that carcass, it is worth about $1.82 per hundredweight of break-even tolerance, and by Honest Cattle’s codified translation the change in the spread is what moves the calf: this week’s $1.67 widening is worth $1.09 to $1.42 per hundredweight, or $7 to $8 a head, on a verified-quality 600-pound Montana calf, arriving with a five-to-nine-month lag. Commodity calves with nothing verified behind them capture roughly 30 percent of that.

12-Month Choice/Select Trend

One note on that table. The September row is fresh and exact, straight from this week’s USDA weekly boxed beef report. The rows from October 2025 through August 2026 are Honest Cattle’s standing reference series, carried from prior editions and not re-verified against USDA this week — they are shown so the trend reads properly, not as new reporting. The full series gets rebuilt from source the next time it can be pulled clean.

What the trend says. The quality spread widened from the high teens in early 2026 to a peak near $28 in June, gave back ground through the summer, and now sits at $21.67 — off the top, but still roughly $4 above where it started the year and nearly three times the level at which quality stops getting paid. The durable message for a Montana cow-calf operation has not changed: the market is paying more for cattle that grade, and it has been paying more for a year running. Genetics, weaning, and verified programs are where that premium gets captured.

SIDEBAR — CHOICE-SELECT SPREAD -> MONTANA CALF BID
This week:  $21.67/cwt (weekly avg, AMS_2461, wk ending 2026-09-04)
Prior week: $20.00/cwt  ·  4-week direction: off June's $28 peak, holding wide
Per $1/cwt move:  $0.65-0.85/cwt on a 600-lb calf  ·  $4-5/head verified-program
Direction this week: BULLISH (+$1.67 widening = +$7 to +$8/head verified)
Lag:  5-9 months

19. Rancher Share of Retail Beef and Price Transmission Index (PTI)

Correction this week, and it reverses last week’s. The August 31 revision restated this section’s rancher share as 40.8 percent for July 2026 and labeled it WARNING, calling the August 24 edition’s 51.1 percent figure an error. That was backwards. USDA’s Economic Research Service publishes the number itself, as a line item called Choice beef farmers’ share of retail beef dollar, in the Meat Price Spreads data set. Honest Cattle downloaded that file directly this run. Its published value for July 2026 is 51.1 percent. The 40.8 percent figure came from Honest Cattle’s own local pipeline, which computes a different thing — it multiplies the net farm value by a 0.741 carcass yield factor and divides by the all-fresh retail value rather than the Choice retail value. That is not ERS’s farmers’ share and should not have been published as if it were. The August 24 edition was right; last week’s “correction” was the error; this section is now back on ERS’s own definition and will stay there.

The number. Of every dollar the meat case collected for Choice beef in July 2026, 51.1 cents made it back to the ranch gate. That is a net farm value of $5.364 per pound against a Choice beef retail value of $10.487 per pound. (For reference, the separate all-fresh retail series that the broken pipeline was dividing by stood at $9.753 per pound in July — a real ERS number, just not the one that belongs in this calculation.) July is the most recent month ERS has published; the file was last updated August 12, 2026 and the next update is due September 11.

The Price Transmission Index. PTI is the current rancher share minus its five-year average. The five-year average, taken from ERS’s own annual series for 2021 through 2025 — 36.8, 40.5, 47.8, 50.2 and 53.5 percent — is 45.8 percent. July’s PTI is therefore +5.3 percentage points, which is GREEN on the recentered thresholds (Red below 43.8 percent, Yellow 43.8 to 45.8 percent, Green above 45.8 percent).

Direction matters as much as level. Month over month, the share is down 3.9 points from June’s 55.0 percent. Year over year it is down 2.2 points from July 2025’s 53.3 percent. The series peaked at 55.6 percent in May and has fallen two straight months. It is still comfortably above its five-year average, so the index stays positive and green — but the slope is down, and the mechanism is exactly the one this section always names: the packer’s margin widened through the summer (Section 9), which means more of the retail dollar stopped at the plant instead of continuing to the ranch. The August print, due September 11, is the one to watch. Two more months at June and July’s pace would carry the share to the Yellow band.

SIDEBAR — PTI -> MONTANA CALF BID
Rancher share, July 2026:  51.1%  (USDA ERS published farmers' share of the
   Choice beef retail dollar; net farm value $5.364/lb vs retail $10.487/lb)
Five-year average (2021-2025 ERS annual): 45.8%
PTI: +5.3pp  -  GREEN  (Red <43.8% · Yellow 43.8-45.8% · Green >45.8%)
Month over month: -3.9pp from June's 55.0%
Year over year:   -2.2pp from July 2025's 53.3%
Direction: still a tailwind, but falling two straight months
Per 1pp NEGATIVE PTI: -$0.50 to -$1.00/cwt · -$3 to -$6/head on a 600-lb calf
   -  no headwind applies while PTI is positive
This week's contribution: roughly +$2.00/cwt · +$12/head of support
Lag: 4-8 weeks
Next ERS update: September 11, 2026 (August data)

Reading that sidebar in plain English. The rancher share is simply the slice of the retail beef dollar that gets back to the ranch gate. PTI — the Price Transmission Index — measures whether that slice is running above or below its own five-year normal. At plus 5.3 points it is above normal, which is a modest tailwind worth about $2.00 per hundredweight, or $12 a head on a 600-pound calf, over the next four to eight weeks. The codified rule only bites when PTI goes negative, and we are 5.3 points from that line — not close, but 3.9 points closer than we were two months ago. Cross-reference the live tile at honestcattle.net/montana-cattle-markets-2.

How this section is sourced. The figures above are taken straight from ERS’s published data file, downloaded and parsed for this edition, rather than from any intermediate calculation. That is the standard this section holds to from here on: when USDA publishes a number directly, Honest Cattle reports USDA’s number.

20. Sentiment Score

Sentiment: 4.5 out of 10, down 0.5 from last week’s 5.0. The score has run 6.5, 6.0, 5.5, 5.0, 5.0 and now 4.5 since the 7.5 June peak. Honest Cattle does not cut the quarterly bands and hold the sentiment score; the band cut in Section 2 is this week’s decisive act and the number moves with it.

What earned the cut. Superior’s September 4 sale marked the forward calf book down another $10 to $20 per hundredweight with a lower undertone through the deferred delivery months — the second markdown of the same book in three weeks. The first real Montana barn calf runs printed under the old bands. The packer’s gross margin narrowed $4.90 and the cutout fell $5.90 on Choice and $7.57 on Select. Managed money is now holding the largest corn net long in 609 weeks of records, in the one commodity that caps what a feedlot can pay. The board’s own feeding margin is still negative. Montana slaughter cows sold $8 to $10 lower in the same week the first 100,000-tonne tariff-free trimmings tranche opened. And the state’s drought footprint expanded another 1.10 points while a Billings sale report named dry conditions as the reason light calves came early.

What held the score at 4.5 rather than lower, and these are not small. July feedlot placements were the lowest for that month in the 30-year history of the series, down 11 percent — the single most bullish forward supply fact available, and it does not decay in a week. The Choice–Select spread widened $1.67 to $21.67, so quality is still getting paid and getting paid better. The rancher’s share of the retail beef dollar is genuinely 51.1 percent and genuinely green at plus 5.3 points, contributing roughly $2.00 per hundredweight of support — and without that corrected reading this score would be 4.0. Montana’s replacement trade ran 83 percent bred females, the strongest retention signal this report has carried in months, with buyers putting $2,800 to $3,100 a head behind it. Montana yearlings off grass sold well, with 769-pound steers at $371.27 and good demand reported at every barn that held a sale. Year-to-date slaughter is still down 7.5 percent. And a record-crowded corn long is a fragile position, not a permanent one.

Dirk’s standing pattern is to run sentiment above the model when conviction is high. For a third week the published score sits at the model’s own read rather than above it, and the reason is unchanged: every fundamental that decides what a calf is worth in 2027 got better or held this week, and every price a calf actually transacted at this week got worse. Four-and-a-half says both.

NET CALF-BID SIGNAL — $/cwt and $/head on a 600-lb Montana calf

Reconciling the table against a 4.5 score, because the gap is the story. Two of the three windows in that table are positive and the forward window is strongly positive — so why is sentiment at its low for the year? Because the table measures five codified fundamentals, and this week’s damage again came from outside them: a second forward-book markdown, a record corn long, a cutout falling faster than cash, an import tranche opening into the cull market, and drought pushing light calves to town. A rancher shipping in the next thirty days lives in that list. A rancher pricing 2027’s calves lives in the table. Both readings are correct at the same time, and 4.5 is where they meet. If the next video sale holds the newly cut level and corn’s crowded long unwinds, this score has room to recover quickly. If the corn long holds and the forward book gets marked a third time, it does not.

21. Risks and Watch Items for the Week Ahead

• The next video sale is the test of this week’s cut. Honest Cattle cut the bands $13 to $15 off a reported $10-to-$20 markdown. If the next Montana-origin forward book prints inside the new bands, the call was right. If it prints another $10 lower, the bands come down again.
• A record fund long in corn. Managed money is net long 401,003 corn contracts at the 100th percentile of 609 weekly reports, held by 113 traders. That is the most crowded position in this report’s history. It cuts both ways and it will not stay there.
• Tranche one of the import quota is open now. 100,000 tonnes of duty-free lean trimmings, September 1 through 30, with a directed 25 percent discount to prevailing import price. Watch the fill rate and watch the 90 percent lean grinding market — that is where a Montana cull cow’s floor is set.
• Tyson’s Pasco, Washington plant is still unsold. No buyer reported. A failed sale widens Pacific Northwest basis on Montana fed cattle and removes a bidder on Montana cull cows.
• The August ERS rancher-share print lands September 11. Two more months at June and July’s pace takes the Price Transmission Index from green to yellow, which flips Section 19 from a $12-a-head tailwind toward a headwind.
• Montana’s dry side is pulling calves forward. Moderate drought expanded 1.10 points on the week and a Billings sale report named it directly. Early, forced marketing into a falling forward book is the most expensive combination available.
• Screwworm case counts. A jump in Texas pauses or reverses the phased port reopening schedule; the U.S. dashboard could not be read by Honest Cattle’s automated pull this run and needs a manual check.

22. Hay Prices

USDA’s Montana Direct Hay Report (AMS_2769) for the week ending September 4, 2026 — the current report, published Friday — describes hay selling generally steady against the prior report of August 21, with pricing still very localized.

What traded. Alfalfa large square 3×4, second cutting, $250.00 per ton FOB on 600 tons. Premium alfalfa cubes, small lots, $300.00 per ton FOB delivered to stables. Oat straw large square $75.00 per ton and wheat straw large square $75.00 per ton, 100 tons each. Grass hay was not reported this week — that is stated rather than filled in from a neighboring state or a prior print. Reported volume was 630 tons of hay and 200 tons of straw, 830 tons total, against 1,030 tons in the August 17 report and 6,700 tons a year ago. Hay continues to be delivered in from Canada and the Dakotas at mostly $180.00 to $230.00 per ton depending on freight.

Supply and demand tone. Demand across the state remains very good, but confirmed trade is thin because producers are busy finishing grain harvest, hauling livestock and putting up hay — and because most say their hay is already spoken for without a price established. Late-season rains improved pasture in western Montana enough that many ranchers chose to graze rather than cut, and many expect a third cutting in western and parts of central Montana on the strength of those same rains. USDA freight-assistance programs are moving hay in from surrounding states at reduced rates. Montana hay is still moving out of state into Wyoming, where severe-drought demand is very good — a state that is short of hay in most counties is exporting it to a neighbor that is shorter.

Drought linkage. The same report cites the Drought Monitor directly: 56.71 percent of Montana in moderate drought or worse, up 2.12 points over two weeks, and 92.52 percent abnormally dry. That is the same deterioration Section 13 reports and it points the same direction as Section 14’s marketing calls — tightening range plus firm hay prices means earlier weaning and earlier placement pressure, not later.

Cow-cost translation. At 26 pounds of hay per head per day over a 150-day winter feeding period, a cow eats 3,900 pounds — 1.95 tons. At this week’s $250 per ton FOB alfalfa that is $487.50 per cow wintered in hay alone, before waste and before hauling. At the $180 to $230 delivered range for Canadian and Dakota hay it is $351 to $449 per cow. Both numbers exclude waste; add 10 to 15 percent for feeding loss on ground feeding and the top end approaches $560.

Cost-of-gain translation. A backgrounding calf eating roughly 18 pounds of ration a day at $250 a ton — 12.5 cents a pound — costs $2.25 a day in feed. At 1.75 pounds of gain a day that is $1.29 per pound of gain in feed alone, before yardage, before interest and before death loss. The market is currently paying roughly 60 to 75 cents per pound of added weight between the 550–599 and 650–699 weight classes. Backgrounding on purchased alfalfa at $250 loses money on every pound put on. Backgrounding on your own standing forage or on cheaper roughage is a different calculation and can still work.

Calf-bid consequence. High hay and short local supply outside western Montana push the economics toward selling calves at or near weaning rather than carrying them, which adds supply to the fall market and presses on the very calf bid a rancher is trying to get. That reinforces Section 14’s decision five and is one more reason this week’s band cut runs in the direction it does. If hay softens as third cutting comes off in the west, the retention math improves — watch the next report, due in one to two weeks.

23. Sources

• USDA AMS, Montana Weekly Livestock Auction Summary (AMS_1778), published Monday, August 31, 2026, covering August 23–29, 2026.
• USDA AMS, Miles City Livestock Commission Auction (AMS_1773), Tuesday, September 1, 2026 — final.
• USDA AMS, Public Auction Yards Livestock Cattle Auction, Billings MT (Wed) (AMS_1774), Wednesday, September 2, 2026 — final.
• USDA AMS, Billings Livestock Commission Cattle Auction, Billings MT (Thu) (AMS_1777), Thursday, September 3, 2026 — final.
• Lewistown Livestock Auction, posted market report, sale of Tuesday, September 1, 2026.
• Montana Livestock Auction (Ramsay), posted market summary, sale of Tuesday, September 1, 2026.
• Headwaters Livestock Auction (Three Forks), posted market summary, sale of Monday, August 31, 2026.
• Sidney Livestock Market Center, Glasgow Stockyards, Bear Paw Livestock, Dillon Livestock Auction, Glendive Livestock Exchange, Western Livestock Auction (Vaughn) — sale calendars and posted results checked September 6, 2026; status as reported in Section 7.
• USDA AMS, Texas Weekly Cattle Auction Summary (AMS_1955), published Friday, September 4, 2026, covering August 30 – September 5, 2026.
• USDA AMS, National Weekly Boxed Beef Cutout and Boxed Beef Cuts — Negotiated Sales (AMS_2461 / LM_XB459), week ending September 4, 2026.
• USDA AMS, 5 Area Weekly Weighted Average Direct Slaughter Cattle (AMS_2477 / LM_CT150), report of August 31, 2026 for the week ending August 30, 2026.
• USDA AMS, Estimated Weekly Meat Production Under Federal Inspection (SJ_LS712), St. Joseph MO, Friday, September 4, 2026, for the week ending September 5, 2026.
• USDA AMS, Weekly Grocery Store Beef Feature Activity / National Retail Report — Beef (AMS_3228), Friday, September 4, 2026, ad period August 29 – September 10, 2026.
• USDA AMS, Montana Direct Hay Report (AMS_2769), Friday, September 4, 2026, for the week ending September 4, 2026.
• USDA AMS, Import Beef Trade (NW_LS421, published as AMS_2823), report for Friday, September 4, 2026, Des Moines IA.
• USDA AMS, Superior Livestock Auction video sale report (AMS_2713), sale of September 4, 2026; Northern Livestock Video/Internet Auction, Billings MT (AMS_2772), sale of August 18, 2026.
• Honest Cattle Montana-only video pipeline, rebuild of September 1, 2026 (Superior sales of July 10, July 30 and August 21, 2026; Western Video Market sale of August 10, 2026).
• USDA ERS, Meat Price Spreads — file “Choice beef values and spreads and the all-fresh retail value,” last updated August 12, 2026, downloaded September 6, 2026. Next update September 11, 2026.
• CFTC, Disaggregated Commitments of Traders, positions as of Tuesday, September 1, 2026, released Friday, September 4, 2026; and the CFTC Commodity Index Trader supplement, same date.
• USDA RMA, Livestock Risk Protection daily rates, Montana feeder cattle, sales effective date Friday, September 4, 2026 (2027 crop year actuarial data file).
• CME Group settlement prices for September 4, 2026, as reported by Brownfield Ag News (market data provided by Barchart Solutions).
• U.S. Drought Monitor, releases of August 18, August 25 and September 1, 2026 (Montana state statistics and CONUS area statistics).
• NOAA / National Weather Service gridpoint forecasts TFX 80,55 (south-central Montana) and HGX 52,100 (southeast Texas), retrieved September 6, 2026.
• USDA APHIS, Confirmed Detections of New World Screwworm and Current Status pages, retrieved September 6, 2026 (page last modified July 12, 2026).
• The White House, Proclamation Further Ensuring Affordable Beef for the American Consumer, signed August 26, 2026, and accompanying fact sheet.
• Tyson Foods Form 8-K filed August 13, 2026, and contemporaneous trade press coverage of the Joslin IL, Eagle Mountain UT and Pasco WA facilities; trade press coverage of JBS Souderton PA and Cargill Fort Morgan CO.
• USDA NASS, Cattle on Feed, released August 21, 2026.
• Honest Cattle Market Index (HCMI) v2.0 published feed, week ending August 29, 2026, computed September 1, 2026 — methodology at honestcattle.net/2026/06/23/montana-cattle-index.
• Honest Cattle forecast accuracy scorecard, rebuilt September 6, 2026; Honest Cattle feed-cost pass-through model v1.1, computed September 5, 2026 (method after MSU Agricultural Marketing Policy Center / John Marsh).
• Honest Cattle, Five Lessons from Montana’s Summer Video Sales — So Far, Special Report published September 1, 2026.
• Honest Cattle reference pages: Montana Weekly Auction Results, Montana Video Cattle Auction Trends, Montana Cattle Markets, Ten-Year History of Snowpack in Park County.

24. Comparison to Prior Week

This report has been reviewed against the prior week’s Honest Cattle Weekly Market Forecast, dated August 31, 2026. The following changes were identified.

No metric in this table is presented as “no material change” without the specific numbers behind it. Where a figure could not be re-verified this run, the row says so.