4/26/19 was down -0.17 and the model projects the component on Friday's kill will change in the range of -0.05 to -0.35. The component on Thursday's kill was down -0.03 to 83.72. Cutouts rallied by +0.55 on Friday but the hit they took of Thursday has packers on the defensive.

With their lower bids, packers purchased 86.0% of the daily moving average purchases of total hog and 100.3% on the index hogs. Usually Friday purchases are in the 120% range. I think packers were not wanting many hogs. If this low purchase/low kill goes on very long it could begin to back hogs up. We may be seeing the March washout that ITZ talks about being pushed back to April.

China still seems to have a ASF problem and they still have 1.3 billion people who like pork. How much American pork they buy may be dependent on Trump and Xi cutting a deal. So far they have not come to a meeting of the minds. Limit today is back at the 3.0 level.

Best wishes,

Doc