By Lester Aldrich

  Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES


  KANSAS CITY (Dow Jones)--Skinned by the global recession, cattle hide prices
have almost doubled in the past five months after dropping to notable lows, but
there is uncertainty about how long the trend will endure.

  Analyst and trader estimates of where prices might go from here ranged from a
retracement of recent gains to further price increases.

  With the latest quote at $52 apiece, weekly hide prices have nearly doubled
since the week of March 13 when they were reported by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture at $27, said Jim Robb, agricultural economist at the Livestock
Marketing Information Center.

  Market analysts and traders said those low prices attracted buyers back into
the market. One industry trader said they had dropped to levels not seen since
the mid-60s.

  Robb linked the decline in hide prices to the global recession.Economic
uncertainty caused tanners and leather end users to shun the market, and prices
tumbled.

  The weakening economy and job losses led consumers away from the market as
well, analysts and traders said.

  The trader said all leather users except athletic manufacturers, those who
make balls and equipment of various styles and sizes, pulled out of the market.
Leather and hide inventories declined as residual levels of consumption nibbled
at available stocks.

  Reduced cattle slaughter this year also contributed to the hide inventory
declines, said Gary Gagnon, editor of Hide and Leather, a publication of
Jacobsen Publishing. Cattle slaughter for the year is down in the U.S., Brazil,
Europe and Australia, reducing hide output.

  Among traditional leather buyers who were notably absent from the market were
automobile manufacturers, the analysts and traders said. Automobile sales
plummeted, along with the demand for leather upholstery, they said.

  Hide price declines probably went too far, too fast, Gagnon said. They
declined so fast that some contracts had to be renegotiated, at least on a
short-term basis.

  The hide trader said once some buyers stepped in to replenish inventories at
prices they thought were unnaturally low, other buyers also came in. This
buying interest coincides with news reports of economists saying the recession
may be nearing a bottom, he said.

  The trader said he thought the hide market could be approaching a near-term
top without an unexpected surge in demand.

  Elaine Johnson, livestock market analyst with CattleHedging.com LLC, said in
an e-mail that with the reductions in slaughter rates, prices have a chance to
rise an additional $5 to $10. Further gains could be achieved only if economic
conditions begin to improve substantially, she said.