TOP STORIES

Greggs Investors to Eye Vegan Sausage Roll Performance in FY Results -- Market Talk

1645 GMT - Greggs investors are likely to eye current trading when the U.K. bakery chain reports full-year results March 3, including how the company's vegan sausage roll has fared since its launch, UBS says. The Swiss brokerage also predicts interest in the company's progress with digital and strategic initiatives, costs and the potential impact of high pork-price inflation. UBS's Heidi Richardson says Greggs has already reported top-line growth for 2019, with total sales up 13.5% and a like-for-like increase of 9.2%. UBS forecasts adjusted pretax profit of GBP114 million for 2019, plus 4.5% wage inflation and 3.5% food inflation for 2020. (philip.waller@wsj.com)

Beyond Meat Stock Is Tanking After Stellar Earnings. Here's What Wall Street is Saying. -- Barrons.com

Beyond Meat crushed Wall Street estimates when reporting fourth-quarter numbers Thursday evening. The stock dropped anyway. Wall Street is weighing in and the big disappointment appears to be all about profit margins.

"Gross [profit] margin of 34.0% was in line with consensus, however, this represented a sequential decline from last quarter's gross margin of 35.6%," wrote Bernstein analyst Alexia Howard. Profit-margin pressure was due to the timing of capacity expansions at two of Beyond Meat's (ticker: BYND) co-manufacturers, as the company outsources the manufacturing of its vegetable-based protein products.

STORIES OF INTEREST

Swarms of Locusts Destroy Huge Swaths of Farmland in East Africa

KAMPALA, Uganda -- Across Somalia, desert locusts in a swarm the size of Manhattan have destroyed a swath of farmland as big as Oklahoma. In Kenya, billions-strong clouds of the insects have eaten through 800 square miles of crops and survived a weekslong spraying campaign. In parts of Pakistan, the pests have eaten 40% of the harvest, forcing the government to declare a national emergency.

The worst plague of locusts in generations isn't over yet, but the gargantuan scale of the damage it has wrought is coming into focus and raising concerns of a humanitarian crisis. Billions upon billions of the insects -- feared by many of the world's ancient civilizations -- have gathered into thick blizzards that have now swept across more than 10 nations on two continents, eating every crop in their path. In parts of East Africa, the epicenter of the plague, swarms the size of large cities are destroying some 1.8 million metric tons of vegetation every day, according to the United Nations, enough food to feed 81 million people.

USDA To Acquire a Fleet of Alternative-Fueled Vehicles -- Market Talk

1237 ET - The USDA's vehicle fleet -- which the agency uses to do food safety inspections, agricultural research programs and other enforcement tasks, will be growing to include more vehicles that use biofuel. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said that the directive will increase the USDA's annual consumption of E15 -- gasoline blended with 15% ethanol content -- by 9 million gallons, also raising consumption of E85 fuel by 10 million gallons. "Where biofuels are available the USDA fleet is directed to use biofuels," said Perdue in his memo. Ethanol consumption in the US has been a key thing corn growers have been watching for. (kirk.maltais@wsj.com; @kirkmaltais)

FUTURES MARKETS

Cattle Futures Close Near Limit Down -- Market Talk

15:20 ET - Cattle futures on the CME fall 2.9c a pound, near a limit-down close. Cattle futures were $1.07575 as a result of the selling. It's the lowest cattle has traded since September. Cattle traders say they expect this downward momentum to relax ultimately. "We're deeply, terribly oversold," says Troy Vetterkind of Vetterkind Cattle Brokerage. According to Vetterkind, fundamentals support a cattle price of closer to $1.25 a pound. Meanwhile, hog futures decline 0.4%, dropping to 62.275c. (kirk.maltais@wsj.com; @kirkmaltais)

CASH MARKETS

 
Estimated U.S. Pork Packer Margin Index - Feb 28 
 
Source: USDA, based on Wall Street Journal calculations 
All figures are on a per-head basis. 
 
Date     Standard Margin       Estimated margin 
         Operating Index         at vertically - 
                             integrated operations 
 
Feb 28       +$ 22.47            +$  2.91 
Feb 27       +$ 22.98            +$  3.02 
Feb 26       +$ 24.12            +$  3.49 
 
* Based on Iowa State University's latest estimated cost of production. 
A positive number indicates a processing margin above the cost of 
production of the animals. 
 
Beef-O-Meter 
This report compares the USDA's latest beef carcass composite 
values as a percentage of their respective year-ago prices. 
 
                                 Beef 
          For Today             Choice   93.3 
      (Percent of Year-Ago)     Select   92.4 
 
USDA Boxed Beef, Pork Reports 

Wholesale choice-grade beef prices Friday fell 24 cents per hundred pounds, to $205.30, according to the USDA. Select-grade prices fell 78 cents per hundred pounds, to $198.91. The total load count was 104. Wholesale pork prices fell five cents, to $63.09 a hundred pounds, based on Omaha, Neb., price quotes.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 28, 2020 17:28 ET (22:28 GMT)

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