Latest / Professional Ag Marketing Podcast / Ceasefire? | Hog Market Talk April 8th, 2026

Transcript

Ceasefire? | Hog Market Talk April 8th, 2026 · Professional Ag Marketing Podcast

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Hog Market Talk Podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: Your weekly deep dive into hog market fundamentals, breaking news and industry intellect, creating commodity futures and update involved of dental risk of luck, and is not suitable for all investors.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: How's it going, Luke?
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, not too bad.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: We actually it's it's maybe we can't call it warm out today, Mike, but it's it's a pretty nice April day, isn't it?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: We have some pretty volatile weather ahead of us here the next week.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of folks are gonna try to get planning probably by the end of next week, but we trade we're gonna be 80 degrees one day and 30 for a little the next.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: So it's gonna be some volatile wet weather.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: A little up and down, kind of like the markets, right?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: A little bit.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think uh no better place to start than we're talking about the hog market, but let's get some of these outside markets out of the way.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like this is kind of what folks are looking forward to today in the in the podcast and and kind of what's relevant, I think, in this marketplace.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: We've traded some pretty unique things in the past couple uh couple trading sessions, but I think last night would be the place to start.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: We uh Trump was supposedly gonna send Iran back to the Stone Age with uh a barrage of missiles last night, and uh kind of a last-minute agreement between the US and Iran uh led the Trump administration suspending those attacks on Iran's infrastructure.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they were mainly tar targeting bridges, power plants, things like that, but it's a two-week agreement that they've got for this ceasefire.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he said they received a 10-point proposal from Iran and they thought it was a workable basis which they could negotiate upon.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And uh Iran now, if you look for very fresh news, kind of as we speak here, the after the the overnight we saw you know, at times over a twenty dollar sell-off and make crude and the SP being up 160.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, we're backing off a little bit now as as you see news that Iran's parliament speaker said that the ceasefire deal with the US was violated.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it's still a very fresh situation.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's last night's news, but it's a two-week deal to fumble this somehow, one way or another.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: I have a feel like we're gonna have some increased volatility here for the next couple trading sessions, to say the least, Luke.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, without a doubt.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: Without a doubt.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm I'm I'm personally thankful last night didn't happen.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: That seemed very uh a lot of death and destruction, right?
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: But uh it seemed like for progress in the markets, like you say, with crude's reaction, the funny I mean it was it was well received.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um but we we I mean there's no simple solutions in this, right, Mike?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: The outside markets.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I the way I've been summing up this situation, I think it's it's very simple when you look at things like the crude oil market and the SP.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Those two are the main markets that seem to matter, get traded correctly through this time frame on risk on, risk off, inflation on, inflation hedging off.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think those are trading and and adjusting accordingly.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um the outside market, specifically the egg, since we care about the egg markets on this show, it it we've been a little disconnected lately on the egg market, specifically the grains, because those have been the ones moving a lot.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um we saw an initial pullback in corn and soybeans last night.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: It had a big pullback.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Soybeans closed green today, Luke, and I thought that was some very odd trade.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: So uh some interesting egg trade, as I feel like uh, you know, maybe the cattle didn't care so much about it as well, should have had a pretty big up day with the SP being higher.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like the egg markets were somewhat insulated by this news by the end of the day.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Quick initial knee-jerk reaction, sure, but uh they felt a little weak lately, anyways.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it it'll be interesting to see what impact crude oil has specifically on on corn and soybeans going forward.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it sure seems like uh some of the egg markets have been insulated from this.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And and hogs probably out of all of the egg contracts, those seem the most insulated, don't you think?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I would agree with that.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: I would agree with that.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: So some very interesting outside markets, interesting outside market activity.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Funds are gonna be very interesting in volume to keep an eye on, but uh this will be an ever-changing situation the next two weeks.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then also on the soybean side, just keep an eye open for May 14th, May 15th.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: We've got some uh trade talks between the US and China coming up.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: So otherwise it's almost hard to forget that there's a WASD report tomorrow.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: I know it seems to be taking for sure a backseat amongst all the other uh the factors pushing and pulling this market around.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what do you think about the hog market today?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like we had some added uh added resistance on this market.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: I know that the 11 a.m.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: print on cutout was a little bit weak as well, but what do you want to focus on there?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean it's it's it's you kind of got I'd say the hog market, you can look at it very, very short term, right?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: And there's there's there's there's some things that aren't real exciting, right?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: Then you can take a little longer, longer term view on it, right?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I guess my whole point is is I we are like it's like the hog market is reading a textbook compared to history and seasonals, right?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: If you just look at May and April, you look you can look at cutout, I mean, you can look at index, you can look at cash price.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's typically a very flat time.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: It just and we're we're not in burdensome production runs.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: We have higher kills this time of year, right?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: And then as we move into early to mid-May, we get into seasonally adjusted lower slaughter, we get grilling demand, and we typically get a movement up, right?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so things all in all, I mean, we we still cash, it's not it's not hot this week, but it's fine.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's 90, 91, 92 dollars, right around, actually a little bit above index, right?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: That's a win.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um cutout, it's just kind of up and down.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it went up to 99, then drifted back down to 97 and change.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: And and so my observation with all this is the hog market's acting very normal for the time when we're just in a little bit of a a stale spot, and and that's that's that's quite okay.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's refreshing in the egg space right now, Luke.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but what's interesting when you tease out of this is this market has this market, this market's optimistic, right?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and so if Kate, if you can pull up like the June chart, I just think it it patterns the story.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like April, April's locked, it's done next Wednesday, April has no movement, right?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: So we're talking about June.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and we've we've we've had really uh kind of some ranges here and and and really strong support around 104, as you can see in this.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking at that uh real hard at that 20 day real hard, real hard.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, around 108, I mean some pretty good resistance, right?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: So how I'd like to describe that is the when the market has optimism, it wants to buy this up.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: You we know we had the Hogan Pig report a while a few weeks ago, whatever, 10 days, which was friendly, right?
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: And we had that big up day.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we had a 99 cutout print, so we were up three bucks the other day.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the market wants to buy this, but they they need to see to to move this June higher in July and August.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like we need to to break out of the range, in my point, is we need we need cutout to not fail at this you know mid to upper 90s, it needs to proceed to 100, 105, and on up and so forth.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just not quite ready yet.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's building, it's doing fine.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: So when you see them buy it up, I mean we went right up to kind of some of that you know, uh resistance areas, and then the next day cutout was down a buck.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: We went down.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so we're in that time frame here.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh, I would say though, if you look at the 200-day moving average, um, because we've we've hit this, we've hit the 100-day what now basically three times.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: So we're really testing that.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: If we break below that, it sure could look like a run to 102, would technically not be out of bounds, right?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but again, from everything we hear um uh on the product side, I you know it looks like it's it just needs a little bit of time.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's working, hands are gaining back, bellies are doing okay a little back and forth, right?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: So so I all in all good.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: Then the other thing to tell, like the hog market is in a good spot, is you go out to December and you look out not only at the December or even into the Feb and April 27.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because I mean December is near contract ties, but like the old crowd or the the closer months certainly are not.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: What can you tell me about those spreads?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what I think is interesting is is the the the supply very manageable.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: We've we've been saying that interestry persistence participants know that, feel it.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: The hog and pig report suggested that with actually a slightly smaller breeding herd and everything except for the heavyweight category at 100% of a year.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: Very stable, right?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: So so and and demand.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: Demand still, I mean, yeah, beefs broke off, it's above 400 mark, it's still very expensive.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: Supplies are right, protein demand is good.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I mean, cutout at you know, it's 97 instead of 101.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's still so it's it's good.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: The market, the market wants to put this premium in, and that's where you're seeing the front end, it's just it's it's just kind of stuck because cutouts stuck.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I will it it needs to justify those premiums.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: But further out in the curve, I mean where you've got these, you know, December, February, April, I mean, what not quite at, but pushing up right near contract ties, it's just we're in a good spot in this market, right?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I I like seeing those deferred contracts continue to trade a little stronger, and you know, not to like lose track of the whole perspective too, margins.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we have had some pullback in corn, you know, and costs and and and the deferred contracts are performing quite well.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, forward margins are, you know, December.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: And quite frankly, you want to look at a targeted margin.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, now we're we're in a great spot of the cycle, so we do have a uh a propensity to look for a little more than targeted margins now, but we're kind of depending on your costs, kind of at a target margins all the way out to June of 27.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so we we do have clients that are hedging out to June of 27.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: It makes really good sense.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: So, all in all, um, you know, summing it up, if you will, just just volatility around geopolitical acres and weather, we don't have any weather risk out in this thing, like watch the inputs, protect the inputs, right?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, the hog market, it's just it's kind of in that late March, early April flat.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, things look good.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's holding the nearby back again uh a little bit from breaking up to new contract ties.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: I think just give that a little time.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then the deferred contracts.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, Mike, as we inch up and we go to 85, and if we can break that and could trade up towards, I mean, you're getting in kind of some rarefied air there, right?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: Just the deferred is the the hog curve is still showing us some really good things, a lot of things to be really excited about.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: So don't forget about managing risk out here in the midst of this, because there's some really amazing margins out there, Mike.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it it we are starting to get into a more volatile time of the year, regardless whether it be inputs or for the lean hog market, you know, going into spring summer time frame here, especially with a few of the other things we're we have going on.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Money flow, commodities could be a pretty big deal here with volatility as volatility leads to guess what, more volatility.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you for coming on the show today.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: We'll catch you next time.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: And in the meantime, uh, thanks for tuning in today, everybody.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Just a reminder to click uh click the link in the description to sign up for our daily market commentary, get fast insights into the ag markets and so much more.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Also, check out our website at professional agmarketing.com.