The action is in cattle...

Last night we saw Tyson Foods decide to stop buying cattle fed with a Zilmax, which promotes weight gain, after finding animals at some of its beef plants that had difficulty walking.

This led to concerns that the move would reduce already tight supplies.

China and Russia have already  sought to restrict meat imports with Optaflexx (a brand of ractopamine), which is an alternative to Zilmax.

As a result our live cattle/lean hog spread gained after being on the verge of being stopped out only days earlier.

With underlying live and feeder cattle both hitting limit highs throughout the course of the day, there is some chance we'll get some follow through buying when pits open on Friday.

For the moment I'm tightening the stop to 40 even as this one hasn't been overly strong prior to yesterday's events.