Hog Pricing Model does a fairly good job projecting the change in the CME Lean Hog Index component."

This morning the projection was down between -0.25 and -0.55. The actual change was down -0.45.

As Blind Hog might say, "Not bad for a gurl."

With the component being down -0.45 that puts the CME Index component on the 12-11-14 kill at 87.83. It looks like the ZZZs will have settled today at about 87.45. In order to get the cash settlement index down to 87.45, the component of today's kill (which we won't know until Monday) will need to come in at 87.07.

That would be a drop of -0.75.

When I ran the numbers from the noon reports through the Hog Pricing Model, it projected that the drop will not be that much. This means that the traders who went to cash settlement with some long ZZZs will most likely have a few pennies added to their bank account when the ZZZs go to cash settlement.

The ZZZs I had were SHORTS!

The six-day moving average carcass weight firmed to 216.04#. That is +2.55# yr/yr. Both packer and non-packer hogs were a bit heavier. I don't this this weight change means much except it means producers still have ample numbers of market ready hogs.

The Feb cattle, hog and cattle/hog spreads were really wild today. This enabled me to convert the short Z/G spreads to short Feb cattle/hog spreads under terms that I think were favorable. Additionally I was able to flip a few Feb cattle/hog spreads so I don't anticipate getting a heart burn when I get my equity run in the morning.

Best wishes,

dhm