firmed to 213.68# and that is +10.67# yr/yr. The carcass weight on packer hogs were actually slightly lower so all of the gain came for a bounce in weight by the non-packer hogs. Additionally the percentage of packer hogs killed on Friday fell to 27.5% of the kill. The percentage of packer hogs kill usually runs a little above 32%.

For sometime I have been suspecting that packers suffered more piglet losses due to the PED virus than did the non-packers. These lower packer kill numbers and lower packer-hog weights are consistent with greater packer piglet losses.

The swine scheduled for delivery report shows that packers have 15K fewer hogs scheduled than they had on this date last week. That is hardly enough to tell us much except that the numbers are fairly consistent with the last H&P report.

The story is a bit different when we look at the yr/yr numbers. The number scheduled this morning is 187K below the same date last year. That is down 8.38% which is outside of the expected range from the H&P report.

It may indicate producers are balking at packers lower bids or it may indicate a softness in market ready hog supplies. In any event, hog numbers are down from one-year ago and it appears the numbers are at least as low as the USDA reported and the numbers may be even lower. Heavy weight carcasses are going a long way toward keeping pork production up.

I'm getting a few small scalps in the QQQs today from the long side but my profit targets are modest.

Best wishes,

dhm