10/13/17 was up +$0.76 and the model projects that the component on Friday's kill will be up between +0.60 and +0.90. This will be the other half of the cash settlement index. Thursday's half was 59.62. The model is calculating that it will take a moon-sized jump of +1.57 to get the cash settlement index up to Friday's settle of 60.40 for the VVVs. This suggests that those going to cash settlement short the VVVs are going to have a fairly nice pay-day. The number of short VVVs I have is by far the largest number I have ever taken to cash settlement.

With their higher bids, packers were able to purchase 125.7% of the moving average daily purchases of total hogs and 122.2% of index hogs.

I have gained some inspiration from reading Dewey's posts and have decided maybe I can trade a larger number of contracts if I am careful and have a good directional signal from the Hog Pricing Model.

The kill last week was huge at a plus 9.35%. Surely the new plants are contributing to that level of kill. I wonder if hogs are now being pulled forward? The six-day moving average carcass weights are holding up well so far in spite of these large kill numbers.

Best wishes,

dhm