BLOG

Answer: not unless the crop is less than 85 million planted acres and 164 BPA.

China has become the largest buyer of US pork even with large tariffs. Why hasn’t the hog market responded as expected to the ASF issue in China and increased Chinese imports of pork? I will give you two reasons and then why a rally is getting closer. Speculative money got long live hogs in April anticipating large buying from China would push cash hog prices higher. It was a reasonable theory, but the market stalled as hog export shipments didn’t grow according to the specs plan. The spec net long position has been reduced by nearly 50% as the hog market has gone from $102 to $75. The risk of ASF reaching the US and devastating the market has kept buyers away. Hog futures and speculators got ahead of the story.