News

Joplin Regional Stockyards owner says cattle market signals strong 2026

The owner of one of the largest sale barns in the country says for the most part, 2025 was a pretty good year for the cattle industry.  Jackie Moore with Joplin Regional Stockyards in Missouri says the year-over-year improvement in prices has been incredible. “These calves are $100 a hundred higher than they were a year ago,” he says. “A year ago, you could buy a 500-pound steer calf for $350, today it costs $450, so you know that’s $500 a head in one year.”

He tells Brownfield the price for cattle continued to climb, until it didn’t.  “When we got into this fall, we got the media and the political people involved,” he says.  “We saw the thing fall off $50, $60, and $70, for three or four weeks, which is very devastating.”

But, as the year comes to a close, Moore says the markets has been on the rebound. “We gained back, sure enough, all of it on the calves and probably more,” he says. “The yearlings, we’re not back to where we were at that time, but we got a chance. We traded the fat cattle this last week at $3.30. We’ve had a $12 rally in that fat cattle market in the last two weeks, so we’re probably on the road to recovery.”

He says he continues to be optimistic about the cattle market for 2026.