A static premium and discount analysis was used to determine whether certain management or marketing practices affect the price of feeder cattle at auction. Data included animal characteristics (sex, weight, muscle, frame, horns, breed, condition, fill, health) and market characteristics (price, lot size, market location, auction sale order). The analysis shows that marketing price can be enhanced by selling heavy muscled, crossbred cattle with either medium or large frame in large (truck-load) size lots. Cattle should carry average fill, an average or slightly fleshy amount of condition, and be dehorned.Because of the volume of cattle sold annually, management practices or animal traits which affect the value of individual feeder cattle have a large economic impact. Small influences on the price received per hundred weight have large significance when multiplied over the total production of a producer or the beef industry. Many factors such as grain and hay prices, weather, prices of competing meats, and the general economic situation of the consumer affect cattle prices. The producer has very little control over these factors.Feeder cattle auction prices observed at specific locations and times reflect the value of animal characteristics, current economic conditions, and expectations about future conditions. General models that determine factors affecting price differentials1 or evaluate adjustment processes2 are useful for analyzing the

Knight‐Ridder surveys provide prerelease expectations of the information in the Cattle on Feed reports. The Knight‐Ridder information is employed here, in accordance with the efficient markets hypothesis, to identify the unanticipated information provided in Cattle on Feed reports. Rational expectations theory is used to test Knight‐Ridder forecasts for unbiasedness, efficiency, and forecast performance. The forecasts mostly satisfy rationality conditions. Live cattle futures prices respond to unanticipated information about placements and marketings contained in Cattle on Feed releases. However, report information is absorbed quickly.

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