Ripley Atkinson, Australian livestock and commodities manager for StoneX, explains where we'll see the best of the sales.
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00:00It's been a flat out week in the south as the first of what will be 32 wiener sales and 60,000
00:05odd head are sold and the first week has certainly gone off with a bang. Reports are in many cases
00:10vendors expectations have been exceeded. I have Ripley Atkinson, Australian Livestock and
00:15Commodities Manager for Stonex on with me today. Rip what are you hearing about the southern wiener
00:21sales? The wiener sales Sharon have started quite strongly and clearly the vendors expectations
00:28have been met to a little exceeded. There's plenty of cattle about, there's good numbers
00:32that are being supplied and generally the mood you can tell across the board is quite good. Feedlots
00:39are driving this cattle market at the minute. They're really showing and playing their hand
00:43and they're the ones that are have the demand more so than the restockers that we might have
00:48seen a couple of years ago during the rebuild and secondly that continued disparity between
00:55heifers and steers has begun again in earnest in 2025 and what I mean by that is heifers are
01:02operating at a significant price discount on a cents a kilo basis to steers. So that's something
01:09that we saw throughout 2024 and already at the wiener sales we're seeing that again this year.
01:14Any idea what that price differential might be just in the early sales?
01:18Yeah it's looking around sort of 70 to 80 cents which is very similar to what we saw in markets
01:25in 2024 and the other factor to remember is the weight of the cattle isn't there this year so
01:32as we know the south has had a pretty challenging 2024 in terms of growing season and the cattle
01:38are definitely lighter than they have been in previous years but the buyers and the feedlots
01:44particularly are chasing those heavier lines. December saw record monthly volumes of beef
01:49exported and we've heard plenty about excellent overseas demand for Aussie beef in 2025. Do you
01:54think that this has played into the market at this stage? Yeah and I think you raise a really
01:59good point of how good last year was. It's evident that we're producing a lot of product but it's
02:04also clear that you know that the 100 plus countries around the world are wanting it which
02:09is great news. Do you think we've seen the best of the prices for southern wieners or will there
02:14be more upward movement next week and how does it all augur for the rest of the year? What we
02:20typically see is those sales around the New South Wales Victorian border is where you see the
02:27strongest markets and the reason being particularly at the minute this year is the strength of the
02:32northern areas of Australia and what I mean when I say that I mean you know northern New South
02:37Wales into Queensland their seasonal conditions have been excellent. Those buyers have really put
02:42a floor in the market and they're taking a lot of the cattle so a lot of the cattle at the wiener
02:46sales are heading north of the border into those areas because of how good their season has been.
02:52Being at those sales on the border freight comes into consideration the further south you get
02:58you know down to Narrow Court, Hamilton across into that sort of western districts
03:02east and south Australia. The best of the sales will be seen along the you know Wodonga,
03:08Wangaratta, Ye areas and the further we move south and west the expectation is for those
03:14markets to soften and because of the freight bill that's got to be associated with moving those
03:19cattle that's got to be factored into the consideration around price so the higher demand
03:25will centre around those border regions. Thank you so much for joining us today Ripley and all
03:31the best going forward.