3/24/17 kill was down -0.66 to 69.95. The weakness of the JJJs has kept the "Gap" quite wide. The JJJs are now trading discount to the component by -3.82.

Over the past five trading days the component has declined an average of 0.309 per day. I believe this is a trend that is likely to continue. Using this as a trend, the model is now projecting that the cash settlement index for the JJJs will be 65.46 with a range of 64.96 to 65.96. It looks like taking profits on the short 66 puts was the correct thing to do.

The six=day moving average carcass weight came in firm this morning at 212.85#. That is -0.94# yr/yr. I believe this indicates that producers are staying very current in their shipments. Packer hogs are now 2.80# heavier than the non-packer hogs. I appears that packers are now liquidating their inventory of heavy hogs. A few weeks back and packer hogs were more than +4.0 heavier than the non-packer hogs.

The calendar spreads spreads have been fairly active today. I was able to make a couple of round-trip trades in the J/K spreads. I generally have to wait overnight to get profits and sometimes they will drag on for months.

Best wishes,

dhm