MURICO.com Forum

The final Purchase Index for - - -

2/19/2020 was up +0.57 and the model projects the component will change between +0.10 and -0.20. Packers may still have an inventory of cheaper hogs purchased that will keep the component depressed for another day or two. My sense is that packers are wanting to kill large numbers of hogs and they are now having to bid up a bit to see who gets to kill the hogs.

With their higher bids, packers were able to purchase 90.3% of the moving average purchases of total hogs and 96.9% on index hogs. Those are good numbers for a Wednesday. The kill so far this week is still quite strong at +4.62% but down from the very high level we have been seeing. If there have been some hogs pulled forward as the numbers may be suggesting, packers may continue to bid higher - - - they usually do from now until the seasonality high is posted. The index won't go straight up there will be plenty of volatility to keep life interesting.

Best wishes,

Doc