INDICATORS: NYCI eases, online listings climb

The National Young Cattle Indicator (NYCI) softened this week to 372.28 c/kg liveweight on Friday morning, falling 0.83 c/kg on the previous month. However, it remains up 58.43 c/kg on the same time last year.

The NYCI is a seven-day rolling average of young cattle sold across all NLRS-reported saleyards and Australia’s suite of online livestock marketplaces.

NSW online sales accounted for the largest portion of the calculation at 33.9%, averaging 372.28 c/kg for lightweight cattle. Listings on AuctionsPlus surged again this week, with nearly 27,000 head of commercial cattle offered in today’s Eastern States Weaner and Yearling Sale.

Yearling steers were the largest category included in the NYCI, with a head count of 10,120 averaging 383.6 c/kg — a 10.09 c/kg decline from last week.

Meanwhile, the Eastern States Young Cattle Indicator (EYCI) — a seven-day rolling average from 23 saleyards across Queensland, NSW and Victoria — sat at 688.37 c/kg dressed on Friday morning. This marked a fall of 27.9 c/kg for the week, down 12.87 c/kg from a month ago but up 83.74 c/kg year-on-year.

In the sheep market, the Restocker Lamb Indicator was 766.4 c/kg dressed, down 38 c/kg week-on-week. The Heavy Lamb Indicator lifted to 849.28 c/kg dressed, an increase of 0.2 c/kg for the week and up 179.6 c/kg on the same time last year.

The Merino Lamb Indicator fell to 695.54 c/kg dressed, while the Mutton Indicator softened to 528.02 c/kg, down 96.37 c/kg for the week.