Flu outbreak sees buyers balk at beef futures

It’s been a wild ride in beef cattle markets as investors struggled to make sense of the growing outbreak of bird flu in U.S. dairy cattle.Markets have seen cattle futures (mainly live and fed) decline in recent weeks as the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) strain made its way into dairy herds in six states to date.The good news, said a cattle auction leader and market expert, is that cash prices have remained more-or-less steady amid the chaos.“The cash prices for the cattle