2nd Worst Weekly Performance for Feb Hog Contracts

Since the Feb hog contracts began trading in August 2021, only one week had a larger loss from Friday to Friday. Feb closed Friday down by $2.25 netting a weekly drop of $7.42. Only the week that ended Sep 30th was harsher at a $7.62 loss for the contract. The other nearby futures also extended their slide on Friday with triple digit losses of $1.05 to $1.87 on the day. April contracts were down $5.65 for the week following fresh LoC highs just before the new year. USDA quoted the National Average Afternoon Base Hog price at $74.47, down by 8 cents. In the ECB the quote was $74 flat, while the WCB was quoted $1.02 higher at $75.57. The CME Lean Hog Index for 1/04 was $78.26 after another 80 cent drop.  

The CoT report showed lean hog spec traders were closing longs through the week that ended 1/03. That left the group 1,889 contracts less net long at 50,359 contracts. 

Weekly FAS data had pork export sale cancelations from the week that ended 12/29 as 51.9k MT for 2022 business. That is typical as unfinished business is rolled to the following year. Sales for 2023 were 73,649 MT. Mexico was the top buyer with 31k MT. Pork shipments for the 2022 CY totaled 1.493 MMT through 12/29 according to the weekly release. 

Pork cutout futures settled the Friday session $0.35 to $1.77 in the red – open interest remains thin. USDA’s National Pork Carcass Cutout value was $84 flat in the Friday PM report after a 32 cent drop. USDA estimates the FI hog slaughter for the first week of the new year at 2.296m head. That compares to 2.552m head during the same week last year.  

Feb 23 Hogs  closed at $80.275, down $2.250,

Apr 23 Hogs  closed at $89.650, down $1.875

Feb 23 Pork Cutout  closed at $88.750, down $1.775,