Failed to find new buying support on rally; long liquidation?

The market looks vulnerable to a long liquidation sell-off over the near term unless reports of virus issues emerge to support. For now, the market looks set to see a much less than normal decline in production into the 1st quarter from a seasonal 4th quarter peak. Feb hogs closed just slightly higher on the session yesterday and traded down near 125 points from the early highs. Weakness in cattle and a premium in futures over cash may have sparked some selling pressure late in the day. Cash was steady on the day and the mid-day pork wire was up 26 cents. USDA pork cutout values, released after the close yesterday, came in at93.16, down 30 cents from Friday and down from 95.48 the previous week. The bullish cold storage report from Friday helped to support the strong gains early in the session yesterday. The CME lean hog index as of Nov 20th was 88.86 down 9 cents from the previous session but up from 88.25 the previous week. The USDA estimated hog slaughter came in at 435000 head yesterday. This was up from 427000 last week and up from 427000 a year ago at this time.