INDICATORS: NYCI climbs as cattle supply tightens in north due to weather

The National Young Cattle Indicator (NYCI) marched forward this week, lifting 13.08c/kg liveweight to be 354.11c/kg on Friday morning. It remains 9.14 up on the previous month and 31.04 higher than 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. 

Roma Store Sale’s throughput, which is usually the largest contributor to the NYCI, dropped due to the fallout of Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred, with just 1,986 head yarded. The largest portion of the NYCI calculation this week came from NSW Online Sales, which accounted for about 20% or 2,318 head.

Yearling steers were the largest category included, with a reduced offering of 4,155 head alongside 3,308 yearling heifers. The steers gained an average of 7.27c/kg in the past week and the heifers averaged 14.16c/kg more than the previous week. 

Meanwhile, The Eastern States Young Cattle Indicator (EYCI), a seven-day rolling average of young cattle from 23 saleyards across Queensland, NSW and Victoria, was sitting at 664.80 cents per kilogram dressed on Friday morning, up 19.27c for the week, 11.14 from a month ago and up 85.65 on last year. 

In the sheep markets, the Restocker Lamb Indicator dropped 23.95 cents per kilogram dressed compared to last week and was sitting at 714.99 on Friday morning.

The heavy lamb indicator slightly dropped 2.08 cents per kilogram dressed compared to last week to be 805.64. 

The Merino Lamb Indicator dropped 5.99 cents per kilogram dressed compared to last week to sit at 669.71 after a massive lift last week and the mutton indicator lifted to 415.62 cents per kilogram dressed, or 31.91 cents greater than the same time last week.