Follow through selling from Monday’s week close developed right from the open on Tuesday, which sent hog futures plunging to deep losses. Futures began to recover some of the losses in the last half of the day, but were still lower at the close. The hog index was up $.06 at $73.83, and projected to be up a penny on Wednesday.
The National Weekly Pork Report on Monday showed total packer export sales for last week at just over 31 Mil Lbs, and down from 34 million the previous week. However, cumulative sales are still 26% ahead of a year ago. The largest increase from last year, has so far been in trimmings. Packers sold just over 7.5 Mil Lbs of trimmings last week, while the cumulative total for the year now amounts to 32.6 Mil Lbs, or nearly double the sales pace of a year ago. To date, 27% of the total MPR pork exports have been trimmings versus 17% last year and an average of 8% in the previous 4 years.
April hogs broke through a longer term up trend line on Tuesday, and the next major level of support is expected at the 200 day average just above $71.
