4-21-15 was up quite a bit less than the model projected. It was only up +0.09 to 65.14. This may mean that the up-trend is coming to an end or it may simply mean that packers ran more of their more cheaply bought hogs through the packing plants than usual. The weakness in the MMMs this morning has cut their premium over the component to 10.41. It appears that there are a bunch of other traders who are now starting to question whether or not the Index can climb all the way us to where the MMMs are trading by the time they go to cash settlement.

Since the hog futures tend to jump around quite a bit, I decided to bank the profits on one short MMM and one long K/M spread. My boat is still listing to starboard with a few extra long K/M spreads that I will happily dump if the spread gets back to Farmer Ed's buy point of 3.00.

The six-day moving average carcass weight was nearly unchanged at 214.30#. That is down -2.91# from this date last year but up 6.08# over 2013. It appears that producers are very current in their shipments but they just keep having enough hogs finishing day-by-day to keep the kill rate firm.

Best wishes,

dhm