4-10-15 was UP 0.59 to 60.98. The JJJs are now premium to the component by 2.24 with three more days of data to produce the cash settlement index. My model calculates that the component will need to move up an average of 0.90 per day to push the cash settlement index up to the 63.25 where the JJJs are trading. From the noon reports my Hog Pricing Model projects that the Purchase Index will be up only modestly today and the component on today's kill will be in the range of up 0.25 to +0.55. It may be a stretch for the "Gap" to be closed by just a jump in the index. The JJJs may have to cough up a tic or two. It appears that I will be going to cash settlement with a boat load of short JJJs.

Friday the percentage of packer hogs killed jumped to 36.82% and they were heavy hogs with an average carcass weight of 220.16#. This may be telling us that packers have a decent supply of their own hogs to kill. If that is the case, i suppose it is possible that packers will be a bit reluctant to throw a lot of money at hogs today and that seems to be consistent with the noon reports.

The 6-day moving average carcass weight moved up to 215.41#. That is only -0.67# lower than they were on this date last year. With carcass weights moving up, it would appear that producers have plenty of hogs in their barns. It may take increased exports to move all the product at increasingly higher prices.

Best wishes,

dhm