Traders are now adding to and aggressively getting short in the hog market. On the third day of acceleration down open interest jumped by over 3,000 cars on large volume reported at 95,000. All levels of support have been taken out. Packers have been successful at slowing the kill and creating a backlog of hogs, allowing them to break the cash. This bearish development occurred due to slowing export business which is just the opposite of what most were expecting, including me. Its totally frustrating to report that disease continues to spread in Asia, forcing the cull of millions of pigs but to no avail to the lousy and backlogged U.S. market. Reports today confirm that Vietnam has now lost 10% of its herd, or close to 3 million pigs. ASF has now been confirmed in large hog farms after wiping out small producers since early March. So the losses presumably will accelerate. ASF continues to spread in China. Again, no matter as the U.S. lean hog futures market is solely focused on the short term which involves a backlog of hogs. Seeing hogs backed up going into the summer is extremely rare. The quarterly hog & pig comes out Thursday. Ive not seen any estimates yet. No recommendations.

I am still holding all Long positions, don't know for how much longer!

Dewey