Alabama Cattle Square
Stop guessing the Alabama market.
Nobody knows where cattle go next. But you can know, today, whether the animal you'd sell is worth more than the one you'd buy to replace it — and whether the pounds between them pay better than it costs you to grow them.
New to this? Start with the explainer
Week of 10/12/2026 – 10/18/2026 · 16 markets · 3,794 head
How to read these figures
Head-weighted averages across every auction USDA Market News reported for the week, quoted on Medium & Large 1–2 — the same grade your sale barn quotes. Every table can be switched to all grades, which runs lower because it folds in the plain cattle. These are averages, not bids: yours will bring what they bring. Not financial advice.
The run-of-the-mill good feeder calf, and the grade most sale barns quote on their own market report.
| Sell ↓ Buy → | 500 | 600 | 700 | 800 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 500 | — | |||
| 600 | — | |||
| 700 | — | |||
| 800 | — |
Each figure is the return on gain in dollars per pound — what the spread between the two classes pays you for a pound. Green means the trade is ahead of your cost of gain, red means it is behind. Below the diagonal you sell the heavier animal and buy back lighter, so you want a high figure. Above it you are trading up and buying pounds ready-made, so you want a low one. Tap any cell for the whole trade.
This week's best spreads
Your numbers
Run the trade you're actually looking at.
The grid is the market average. This is your load, your cost of gain, your freight.
What you'd sell
What you'd buy back
Prices prefilled from Alabama averages for 10/12/2026 – 10/18/2026. Nothing is saved and nothing leaves your phone.
Selling pounds
$117
a head · $5,826 on 50 head
The market is paying $1.71 a pound for the 192 lb you would be giving up, and it costs you $1.10 to put one on. That is $117 a head in your favour.
- Return on gain
- $1.71/lb
- Your cost of gain
- $1.10/lb
- Sell value
- $2,530
- Buy cost
- $2,203
Most you can pay for the replacement
$2,319$422.43/cwt
$117 a head of room at the asking price.
Learn
Not sure what you are looking at? We will teach you.
Ten minutes, plain English, worked through with this week's own figures: why the price slide exists, what return on gain really means, how to work out your own cost of gain, and how to set a bidding ceiling before you ever raise your hand.
Read the explainer
How this is calculated
Every figure on this page, step by step.
The formulas
- Value per head
weight (lb) × price ($/cwt) ÷ 100
A 750 lb steer at $300/cwt is worth $2,250.
- Return on gain (ROG)
(sell value − buy value) ÷ (sell weight − buy weight)
What the spread between the two classes pays you per pound, in dollars per pound.
- Cost of gain (COG)
your cost to put on a pound, in $/lb
You supply it. The grid's slider starts at $1.10, which is a middling backgrounding figure and nothing more — your own number is the one that matters.
- Margin
(sell weight − buy weight) × (ROG − COG)
Per head. Times head in the load for the whole trade.
- Efficient market value (EMV)
sell value − (weight difference × COG) − (weight difference × target profit)
The most the replacement can cost and still leave the profit you asked for. Also shown as $/cwt on the buy weight.
A worked example
You sell a 750 lb steer at $300/cwt and buy a 500 lb steer at $350/cwt. Your cost of gain is $1.25.
- Sell value: 750 × 300 ÷ 100 = $2,250
- Buy value: 500 × 350 ÷ 100 = $1,750
- You keep $500 and owe 250 lb of gain.
- ROG: $500 ÷ 250 lb = $2.00/lb
- Margin: 250 × ($2.00 − $1.25) = $187.50 a head
- EMV at 25¢ profit: $2,250 − 250 × $1.50 = $1,875, or $375/cwt — so at $350 there is $125 a head of room.
Which way the test runs
Selling the heavier animal means the market is paying you for pounds, so you want the return on gain above your cost of gain. Selling the lighter one and trading up means you are buying pounds ready-made, so you want it below. The formula never changes; the test does, and the grid scores each half accordingly.
Where the numbers come from
- Prices and weights. USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, Market News — every livestock auction report USDA published for the last completed Monday to Sunday, head-weighted into one average per weight class.
- Average weight. The weight USDA reports for the class, not the midpoint of the range. A 500–600 lb class that actually averaged 543 lb prices quite differently from one assumed at 550.
- Averages only. A class appears only when enough head traded to publish it. No figure on this site comes from, or identifies, a single sale barn.
- Grade. Quoted on Medium & Large 1–2, the grade a sale barn's own report uses, so the two agree. The toggle above the grid switches to all grades, which runs lower because it folds in the small-framed and the thin-muscled, and furthest below on light calves.
- Assumptions. Shrink, commission and freight are zero unless you enter them. Pencil shrink reduces the cheque, not the pounds you have to put back on. Nothing here uses futures.
This is an educational tool built on market averages. It is not financial advice, and it cannot know what your cattle will bring. Check with your sale barn before you act. See the underlying averages.
Questions
About the square
- What is a cattle square?
- A way of comparing two animals on the same day instead of guessing where the market is headed. You price what you would sell against what you would buy to replace it, and look at what the spread between them pays per pound of gain. Because both sides move with the market, the relationship between them is far steadier than either price on its own.
- What is return on gain?
- The difference in value between the two animals divided by the difference in their weight. It is what the market is paying you, today, for a pound of gain on that class of cattle. Compare it against your own cost of gain: if the market pays more than it costs you, the trade is worth doing.
- What is efficient market value?
- The most you can pay for the replacement animal and still make the profit you set out to make. Bid above it and the trade is working against you no matter how the market moves afterwards.
- Do I need an account?
- No. Every tool on LivestockHub is free and open, with no sign-up. Nothing you type into the calculator is saved or sent anywhere.
- Where does the data come from?
- USDA Market News auction reports for the last completed week, head-weighted across every reporting market. The site publishes state and national averages only and never shows figures for an individual sale barn.
- Can I use this for heifers, or for swapping steers for heifers?
- Yes. The grid carries steers, heifers, and both directions of a steer-heifer swap, and the calculator lets you set the sex on each side independently.
The square by state
See a mistake? Tell us — we'd rather hear it than have it sit wrong. See prices by state