11/16/18 was down -0.59 to 58.27. The ZZZs have now moved premium to the component by +2.75. The strength of the ZZZs forced me to cover those which I had sold and sent me home in the red. Some days things like that happen.

The six-day moving average carcass weight moved up to 213.43# driven by packer hogs being up 1/5#. Packer hogs are now +2.57# over non-packer hogs. The jump in packer hog weights might be interpreted as packers falling behind in their shipments but the numbers do not validate that conclusion because packer hogs made up 35.8% of the kill in the last six-days but during the past 200-days packer hogs were only 34.29% of the kill mix. Bottom line: Packers are continuing to vertically integrate and are expanding their production capability. And I wonder, "Will corporate hog production expand and kill the hog futures market just as corporate egg production killed the egg futures market?"

It could happen!

Yesterday I was able to un-load quite a few hog spreads and am now in the chase to re-load my boat. I am still HODLing the summer futures. I was looking for too much of a dip in the summer futures and missed re-loading on the last dip.

Best wishes,

dhm