Latest / Professional Ag Marketing Podcast / Live at World Pork Expo — industry mood and optimism | Hog Market Talk June 3rd, 2026

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Live at World Pork Expo — industry mood and optimism | Hog Market Talk June 3rd, 2026 · Professional Ag Marketing Podcast

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Hog Market Talk Podcast.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Your weekly deep dive into Hog Market Fundamentals, breaking news, and industry insights.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Trading commodity futures and options involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: All right, we are here live at the World Pork Expo at Fiesta de Pig.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: I've got Mike Fitzgerald with us here today.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: We're going to be talking about the hog market.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: How's it going, Mike?
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's going good.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we're going to talk about the hog market just in general.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: We'll keep it nice, short, and sweet.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: But first, I want to ask what you think about the tone of the show, how the showing has been, and and uh what you're talking to producers about today.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, really good show.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think the turnout's amazing.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: I I would argue this is probably one of the best turnouts we've had in the last several years at the show.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think just the temperament of industry folks today is generally optimistic.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's things to be excited about in the future.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's things to be excited about today, and just I guess overall, maybe a little disappointed with how things have gone over the last 45 days.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but still, there's time and and people seem optimistic for the future.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: So let's talk a little bit about what those last 40 days have looked like in the hog industry and just some of the reasons why we've seen the setback in prices going into the time of the year where we are pretty hopeful.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: So it talk to me a little bit about why we've seen what we have here.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I think some of the disappointment people would have is because of year-over-year comparisons.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, a year ago in middle of May, the average paid price in the hog industry was probably 90 bucks.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then we experienced a pretty good cutout increase over the following 30 days as we headed in the middle of June.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: This year we haven't experienced really any.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm oversimplifying that there's been a little bit of improvements, but the cutout itself has been in like a 95 to$100 range since we began the year.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and our and our harvest numbers have really fallen off here in the last several weeks.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: So if we were waiting for the cutout to finally go up because of a decrease in numbers, the industry is not really sure what else it takes at this point because we've had three weeks in a row of less pigs harvested year over year.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: We've um back in the middle of March, for example, we would have had a hundred dollar cutout in the middle of March, and we had uh 2.5 million kill back then.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas last week, Memorial Day week, we killed less than 2.2 million.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's 300,000 less head harvested, and our cutout was three dollars lower in that same time frame.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where some of the frustration lies.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I I think a lot of us have a lot of optimism into this year because we're thinking of things like competing proteins and beef.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Box beef values are just under$400.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Pork should compete with that to s at some level.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: And if you just dissect the cutout into several different primals, what you're gonna find is year over year, things like butts and ribs are higher than a year ago and by quite some margin at this point in time.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: And picnics and loins are higher than a year ago, but close.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's there's really not a lot of excuses on those things.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: The cutout is is absolutely doing better than it was a year ago.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Bellies continue to be our problem as our harvest numbers have fallen off.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Bellies have struggled and they've actually lost ground.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I can consider that to continue or not as we go forward.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um typically, bellies, the tighter the supply gets, the better that they respond.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we'll see how the next few weeks go.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: I I hear good things out here today at the pork show that there's there is a little bit of backed up inventory, but maybe a couple weeks out from cleaning that up.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: And that's not uncommon in in unique years, right?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: A couple of years ago, we saw a similar situation where it took a little bit longer here yet.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: Can you talk about that?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: Just compare the two real quick.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: So the best year I can think to compare it to would be 2023.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, 2023 harvest numbers fell off similar to what we did this year.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: And the belly primal probably fell off 40 or 50 bucks, very similar to what we fell off this year.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: And the saying in that particular year was the cure for low prices is low prices.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like domestic consumption of bellies is good.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: We don't really need exports.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: We we probably are a net importer in the summer.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: So having that primal be cheap as supplies tighten up really helped keep demand fueled.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: And in that particular year, I want to say they went up.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't, I guess I don't remember for sure.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: They were over$200.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: They were in the 70s, and I know they got over 200 in 2023.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I I'm not holding my breath for that kind of a move, but I I think that some movement should improve here soon.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: We saw not today, but yesterday, we saw an interesting trading session where we saw a reversal in the hog market in a couple months, and we had a good morning print on cutout up a couple bucks, and we weren't able to hold it in the afternoon last night, and then today we posted a little bit lower cutout and didn't we follow through a little bit, but nothing crazy.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: Where do you think we sit now?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then uh what's to come in the near future, I think, for this hog market.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, a million dollar question, right?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, I don't have the the a great answer for that one.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: You're right.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yesterday technically was a really good day.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: We closed a gap in the July contract that's been sitting there since early December.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we had an outside day higher close.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: All of those are really good technical stuff.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: We closed above the five and 10-day moving average, those are really good.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it it unfortunately the hog market has to settle to what the index is.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: And we do have a settlement coming up here very soon.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: So June lean hog futures will expire next week on Friday.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it does carry a premium still, which means that the cutout has to go up, and it has to go up in the next few days, or we may see a little bit of a setback.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: The cutout was lower today.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: My expectation, expectation for tomorrow's trade would actually be to open up a little bit lower following that.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but remember what we went through when we were discussing the cutout and the individual primals.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: The only primal holding us back is the bellies.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: That is the one primal that that a person has to feel a little bit good about if as we're out here at the pork show, if there was something that could help us turn the corner, the bellies can do that.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they and they proven to move a lot.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like you get into uh late summer most years, there's it's not uncommon to see the belly primal fall off 60 cents in one day.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't say that on the way up, usually things stair step on the way up more than what they do on the way down, but certainly the belly primal can show improvement.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, very interesting on the belly specifically there, but thank you about talking through that here a little bit.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: Any other final thoughts for our listeners you think are just relevant, something to keep an eye on in the hog industry going forward?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh hog supply heading out into late uh Q3, early Q4.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that certainly has been talked about a lot out here at the pork show with potentially some health issues.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um wean pigs, I I you hate to ever be someone that says, hey, there's a hole out there.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: I I definitely am not going to say that.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: But the weaned pig prices today definitely signal to us that something's off.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Negative margin territory that those things would be in says supplies are tight.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you for your time, Mike.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: Again, we're here live at the World Pork Expo.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: Been a fantastic day.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: We'll have some more coming at you tomorrow.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: But thank you for your time.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: And if you are at the show, please stop by the tent right on Main Street.