摘要：Mandatory livestock price reporting has changed how prices are reported and used by analysts and market participants. Reporting has affected the availablity of many reports and has added new reports and information. The new information often needs to be put into a meaningful form for direct use by analysts and participants. A brief overview of the evolution and implementation of mandatory price reporting is given. The new price reports are then discussed and compared to voluntary reports. Special attention is given to new reports that give insights into the short- and medium-run cattle supply situation. As South Dakota had State-level reporting in place prior to the Federal law, there is additional data and insights that put national observations into perspective. While the focus is on cattle reports, swine reports are also briefly discussed.
