Download PDF The hairline cracks in pork demand started to grow a little biggerthis week. The pork cutout dropped $3.68/cwt. to average$99.53. That is the first sub-$100 cutout since the first week ofFebruary. As is typical, the negotiated hog market followed thecutout lower, and the NDD market lost $2.27/cwt. All of thathasn’t yet been reflected …
Download PDF This felt like a bad week for the hog and pork complex, but I’m notsure that the story the data are telling is as bad as the futuresmarket implies. Certainly, traders turned bearish in a big way,driving the front of the futures curve down $4-5/cwt this week.That action was precipitated by growing dark …
Download PDF This was a constructive week for pork packers. They managedto move the cutout higher while at the same time keeping somepressure on the cash hog market. That helped to restore theirmargins back to about $15/head, which is much more typicalfor this time of year than the negative margins that they postednear the end …
Download PDF The pork cutout advanced a tiny bit this week, gaining $0.79 toaverage $103.20/cwt. That gain stands in sharp contrast to prices inthe hog market, which were sharply lower. The WCB negotiatedmarket dropped $6.49/cwt this week and the LHI lost $5.80/cwt.The LHI has now lost $15 in just 2 weeks. One might think thatwould …
Download PDF The hog and pork complex remained on the defensive thisweek and the main feature was a huge $18/cwt drop inreported negotiated prices. The WCB negotiated marketaveraged $107.38 this week, down from a little over $125 theweek before. It isn’t all that unusual to see the negotiatedmarket follow the cutout down after a big …
Download PDF Well, it finally happened. The pork market underwent a majordownward correction this week, led by the bellies. It started onTuesday morning when the AM pork report showed the bellyprimal sharply lower on big volume. By that afternoon, the cutoutprinted down $12 from the day before as the bellies were joinedby the hams and …
Download PDF The hog and pork complex continued to ease lower this week asthe cutout dropped $3.02/cwt and the WCB negotiated marketwas down $3.32/cwt. The losses in the cutout were largelydriven by big declines in the belly primal. Hams also moved alittle lower, but the downtrend there seems to be slowing.Perhaps the most surprising event …
Download PDF The pork cutout took another step lower this week, dropping $3.46/ cwt to average $123.34. Unfortunately for packers, the cost of hogs going into their plants increased this week. The LHI was up only $0.40/cwt, but the WCB negotiated market gained $3.61/cwt. The falling cutout combined with rising hog prices caused packer margins …
Download PDF Prices in the hog and pork complex continued higher thisweek, with the cutout adding $3.24/cwt on a weekly averagebasis and the WCB negotiated market up $1.57/cwt. We arestill seeing a strong positive influence on the cutout from thebellies and hams. The ham primal averaged close to $117/cwtfor the week and that was the …
Download PDF Cash hog prices held about steady this week, but the cutoutgained nearly $6/cwt on a weekly average basis. The chartbelow indicates that, once again, it was the processing items thatwere the main drivers of the cutout increase. Bellies in particularcaught fire this week. It is a dangerous combination when hamsand bellies are moving …