President Donald Trump announced last week that he would be postponing the next round of duties on Chinese goods scheduled to go into effect March 1, thanks to a round of “productive” trade talks between U.S. and Chinese officials that has been taking place throughout the last month.

The USDA continues to catch up on reports stalled by the shutdown and, as part of catching up, released the January Cattle on Feed report on Friday, Feb. 22. The report has lost a little bit of its normal timeliness, but still contains a few interesting nuggets.

The latest USDA Cattle on Feed report issued on Feb. 22 was delayed a month because of the federal government shutdown. The report showed December placements at 98 percent of one year earlier and marketings at 99 percent of last year, leading to a Jan. 1 on-feed total of 11.69 million head, 101.8 percent of the prior year.

With USDA data flowing again, the final numbers for 2018 will begin to emerge soon as well as current numbers for 2019. The annual Cattle report will be released after a one-month delay in late February.

Extreme cold temperatures and heavy snow is gripping much of the eastern half of the country this week. From eastern Montana, across the Great Lakes and the Midwest to the East Coast and the Southeast, wind, snow and winter mix will likely impact cattle, travel and a host of markets.

The forecast for 2018 beef production is increased by 25 million pounds to 26.9 billion pounds. This minor adjustment is based on greater expected steer and heifer slaughter, which is partially offset by anticipated lighter steer and heifer carcass weights and lower expected cow slaughter in the fourth quarter.

While the partial government shutdown remains in force, market reports are no longer happening, but some market experts are able to give some insight as to what 2019 might have in store for the U.S. cattle market.

Evolving market dynamics make it easy to underestimate how the impacts and costs of trade issues will continue to grow in 2019. Many agricultural markets have been impacted thus far, and the damage will grow and spread unless resolutions are forthcoming promptly. Trade issues will have accumulating impacts in a variety of ways as more time passes.

As the partial government shutdown completes its fourth week, the gaps left by many government agencies whose responsibilities are left unattended until further notice are starting to show. One of the most far-reaching concerns is the livestock market reports usually provided by the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service and the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Large supplies, record exports and trade concerns are just a few of the topics that dominated the beef headlines in 2018. Amidst all of these factors, U.S. calf and yearling prices have showed relatively consistent strength throughout the year.