The Swine Times – January 22-26, 2018 – Hog Trading Wrap Up

CURRENT POSITIONS:

• LONG 1 UNIT OF APRIL HOGS
• SHORT 1 UNIT OF AUGUST HOGS @ -8.75

Hog Market Prices – January 15-19

Looking into next week:

•  As you can tell by the primal cut quotes above, there has been very little activity on the pork product market.
• Swine Times mentioned last week that the price spread between loins and butts would narrow. We saw that happen this week as the price spread came from $28.21 on Monday, 1/15/18 to $20.83 this Friday, 1/19/18.   Our opinion on the reason the loin/butt price spread  had gotten so wide is that the Winter Olympics hosted by South Korea are just the corner. The Korean importers loaded up their freezers with Boston butts in preparation for the Winter Olympic games.
• Hams had a modest gain this past week, as sellers have been content to try to keep the prices under control in order for hams to continue to move through their usual channels.
• The packers have decreased their weekly slaughter schedules in order to prevent any substantial decrease in their margins.  We look for this to continue.
• The bellies are once again at the forefront, gaining $2.06 in price.  We look for bellies to top out up around $1.50, but we could be wrong.
• We will be watching the government shutdown news as well, if the shutdown lasts past this week the cold storage report would probably be in jeopardy next week. The event has been slightly dollar negative so far.

How we trade this:

We have revised our prices to buy February and April hogs as follows:

• The February and April hogs are still a buy on sharp breaks as indicated by the pig crop report. By a sharp break, we mean 150-200 points below Friday’s settlement price. Be cautious. (See the final bullet point at the bottom of this page.)
• We recommend buying February hogs under $72.00
• Watch for the opportunity to buy April hogs under $74.00, if they get there.
• The month of February is particularly slow for pork and we expect this year to be no different.  Swine Times is advising our readers to be patient and watch for opportunities to buy April hogs.
• We are also looking at buying April selling August hogs at $9.00 to the August or better.
• The weather will continue to be a factor.  Keep checking weather sources for storms and drastic changes in temperatures.
• We are still cautioning our readers to pay attention to news stories on NAFTA. Any talk of changes in the trade agreement can cause short term, severe price drops or spikes in live hog futures.

Have a great week. Be sure to sign up for trade alerts so you can stay in step with our efforts.

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