/12/19 was down -0.09 and the model projects the component on Thursday's kill will drop between -0.50 and -0.80. As I was gathering and entering the data, I noticed Index hogs in all markets and categories were down quite a bit but when the model spit out the afternoon Purchase Index, it was only down a paltry -0.09. Sometimes when the variance between daily carcass weights or purchased numbers are excessive, the CME Lean Hog Index formula will spit out numbers that seem to be out of character with market action. And that was the case on the data from yesterday. In spite of the small Purchase Index number, the projected change in the component seemed to be quite believable.

With their lower bids packers purchased 80.7% of the daily moving average daily purchases of Total hogs and 86.7% on the Index. The kill this week is coming in very strong. We need a strong week this week to catch up on some of the hogs that were not killed in the previous two weeks.

I still don't now who the "Big Dog" was sho caused all the early morning commotion in the hog market yesterday. As I see how how weak cutouts were yesterday and with packers bidding lower for hogs, I wonder if the big gains of yesterday will hold up on Friday .

Best wishes,

Doc