Final Purchase Index will be late. From the Friday afternoon reports the model projects the component on Friday's kill will be down between -0.30 and -0.60. The weakness in the cutouts dropped packers' gross margins to $12.16 per Index hog. That will not entice packers to bid higher.

The kill last week was very strong at +7.17% over the previous year. The 6-day moving average carcass weight of Index hogs is going down suggesting the producers of Index hogs are getting current in their shipments and may even be pulling hogs forward a bit. Packers, on the other hand, seem to have been holding hogs back and finishing them to higher weights than the non-packers.

Best wishes,

Doc