Spike, Tim, & Farmer Ed, I am glad to see someone on the forum again! I am still alive and trading hogs & cattle, not doing very well at moment! I almost swore off the hogs as that market is being controlled I think by 2 or 3 packers (largely Smithfield I believe). Following are some comments I received this evening from my broker

LEAN HOGS
The bull spreads took a beating with Feb down 165, Apr down 60 with the rest of the board higher. Hogs are two different markets. The oversupplied lousy Feb and the strong and impressive summers. Weights are heavy, that’s a fact. The kill was pegged at 498K. The good news is that the kill is not being revised downward. Packers are willing and able to kill and process nearly 500K per day. The closing pork report showed the cutout down $1.06 at $78.13. Bellies are weak with the primal belly down 15 cents.

What to Expect?
Someday the worm will turn in the hog market. Evidently not this week. Corn prices are now above $5.00. That’s going to change a lot of things in the hog, cattle and broiler industry. In addition, one can expect corn prices to stay strong all winter and into spring. They may not keep accelerating upward, but they’ll likely stay strong. Feeding margins are upside down. The USDA is still projecting higher production this year and lower exports. I’m highly confident they’re going to be dead wrong on the production forecast, the exports, well, we shall see. IMO we’re approaching a global food shortage and China is one of the main players facing the shortage. Their corn prices are above $11.00/lb and meal prices are above $550/ton. They’ll keep importing large amounts of cheap U.S. pork and IMO, large amounts of relatively inexpensive U.S. beef. Summer and fall hogs just keep “creeping” into new highs. One day they’ll gap higher and never look back.

Dewey