Latest / Professional Ag Marketing Podcast / Pork's New Strategy | Hog Market Talk April 1st, 2026

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Pork's New Strategy | Hog Market Talk April 1st, 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 of industry and trading commodity futures and options involved to total with the block that is not suitable for all investors.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Today is April Fools.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: We've got April 1st here, so I thought I'd have Jeff on the video.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Finally makes sense.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's let's dive into this hog market here a little bit, Jeff.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh just worth noting, I want to talk about the June chart just a little bit here and some of the chart work we've been looking at.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna have Kate pull this up.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: So this is a June chart.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: When I'm looking at some of the moving averages, which one of the ways I really like to track futures months.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: So this is a June lean hog futures.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: You can see, so we've got the white line right at a support level of where we've been at the last four or three days here.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: That would be our 10-day moving average.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Green is 20 up top that it seems like we're currently gonna hit the head of on some resistance.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then you've got red as a next support point below us, and then pink I would call a downside target if we broke through that, for example.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: This I think is gonna be very interesting as we kind of approach that 10 and uh 100 day moving average together on a support point, how these June hogs act.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm curious if we can try to break through that uh yeah, that pretty major resistance of the 20-day sitting above us.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: So just from a chart perspective, these are some of the things I've been focused on technically here lately.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: Well, uh as you well know, Mike, I mean, the uh in in from our chair, and there's some people obviously they'll trade technicals, and that's all they'll trade, they'll ignore the fundamentals, right?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's not the camp that we're in.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: I think when you try to tie some fundamentals to those technical marks, is where it becomes valuable.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: So as I uh look at that chart and I'm watching your 20-day moving average, that's where we kind of hit our head on.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: I believe it was Friday, Friday or Monday.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: Monday.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, to me, that was a basically a day and a half rally that we got out of a fairly bullish hogs and pigs report.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Now that's significant.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's well, it's I think it is.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: I agree.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's also like that that's not a bad um rally off to in today's world from a hogs and pigs report, in my opinion.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's not gonna be this huge game changer like it was maybe 15 years ago, 10 years ago, um, where hey, a hogs and pigs report, quarterly supply report would completely change the trend of the marketplace.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's not what they are today.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's a day, two-day type of movement, and then we're back to looking at what's next on the fundamental um from the fundamental standpoint.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: So day and a half rally hit our head on top of that 20-day moving average.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: Now we look at fundamentals.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they're not supporting$107,$108 June future.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: But today, fundamentals are not near that optimistic.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but now let's fast forward, let's flip it around and start talking about the levels of support that you're looking at.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think the fundamentals can support that.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um and that we maybe don't have to, where'd you have that line at?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like uh 104 or something.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just below 104, there is that uh 100 day moving average.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: That'll be pretty significant support, I would assume.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: I I I would very much agree with that.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I would hope that the fundamentals can kind of support us from that type of a level.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um we're still gonna have quite a bit of premium in those June futures to where today's CME index is at, obviously.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so there is some risk in making that statement.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: But, you know, hopefully we can um at least not getting more bad news on from a fundamental standpoint, and eventually no good news will become bad news as time passes, right?
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then the June future try to hold that premium.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, hopefully short term here we can at least uh stabilize things like product values.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then I think we can hold that that 104.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: The HP came out what Thursday?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: The what?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Thursday last week was a HMP.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: So with that being the case, too, Friday we saw a massive update in the cattle market following that up too.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: So you basically had the HP report get traded a little bit Friday, and you had the cattle market pop.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: And if you look at that chart, your big first day that we had there, Friday in that trade basically was kind of where we started to challenge some of these technical trends, really pretty big breakout up above that uh uh 10 day.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I I like when we can have a significant fundamental report, some big shift, and we're able to start developing a new trend or challenge it uh on the technical side off of that.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: So some things that have happened here this week that we kind of like to follow as well, Jeff.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Cattle are ripping lately.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think that has helped hold this hog market up or had any impact on it at all?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, no question in my mind that's that's been related.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: Some of the reason I say that is because um the cattle seem like they got a bit of the mind of their own.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: What I mean by that, they're not experiencing the fundamentals um from a huge standpoint to support them.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: So just a ton of buying interest going into that market right now.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Which technically means nobody really knows why cattle are going up right now, they just are.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't quite want to come uh come at it that aggressively, Mike, but that is people have some okay reasons, but normally people at least have a wild theory of like, oh yeah, it's because of this.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: And the best answer I've got is well, it cash is up a little bit.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel like it there's some interesting money flow things going on for sure.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh 100%.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: What about on the on the like demand side, then seeing what choice cutouts done?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: How's port cutout uh uh in it handling this as well?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and that's that's one of the things when I uh when I talk about the uh positivity in the futures right now of the hog markets, you know, it's the product values, for example, are not supporting that uh kind of optimism, right?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: And that's part of the reason why we had to pull back here a little bit last couple days and why uh cattle have continued to run higher.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but you know, we're we're gonna be off week over week um on pork cutout, uh about two dollars, two and a half dollars lower week over week on the composite.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of that has come from that ham market.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I know you guys have been talking about that quite a bit, but it just we we had a classic ham meltdown here a little over a week ago, um, where we volume started going up on the negotiated level, prices go down.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: We just ran into this tight spot as far as ham supplies.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, looks like we had to hit that 70 cent level on hams and found some really good support there.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: So, this is one of those things that we're watching.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like, okay, I think this is something that can build support off the 70 cent level.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: Can we get back to that 80 cent type money on hams?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then that will help support the product values in the upper 90s.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: Should be able to let your technical support level in that 104 June area hold, Mike.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: What other fundamentals are you looking at right now on this hog market that you think matter?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: Trying to keep a close eye on weights and on on the harvest rates.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we're we're going to have a little bit shorter week this week with Easter, of course.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um starting to normalize ish.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, what we're really we're just we've put uh what is it about five weeks now consecutively higher um harvest rates than what we did last year, um, which Hogs and Pigs report supported that, by the way, right?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: Two and a half percent more in that heaviest weight category.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: But um making sure that we don't get behind on weights.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: We don't really expect them to go drastically lower or anything like that, because return over feed is excellent, but we need them to kind of continue to try and sideways instead of higher.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: That would indicate at least we're working through the available supply that we have in front of us right now, even though it might be inflated just a little bit.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we're not gonna get further behind and then and push a uh what is now kind of a minor issue as far as supply goes, push that to May 1 or something, right?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: Now it's like, oh shoot, now we got a pretty bad problem compared to expectations.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like if we can't get this hog market off the mat here, middle of April, um, going into that third week of April for sure, these futures are gonna have lots of problems from$104.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of seasonal changes right about May 1st, then.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: So that has to that has to go well.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: Otherwise, our summer futures are in a bit of trouble here.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Understood.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Understood.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: What other uh what other things are you following in this hog market right now?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've talked about it in the past that for the most part this hog market's been somewhat insulated to the Iran conflict.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: We've traded it a little bit there prior to last week.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what other options, what what other things are you seeing that kind of impacting this hog market right now?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I I do think there's some uh um there's some premium in those summer markets today because of the health challenges that everybody's experiencing or or at least knowing that.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: The elephant in the room no one really wants to mention.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I I usually that's something that maybe we're um talking about quite often as producers, but you don't really see much evidence in the futures markets for sure until we start experiencing you know lower supply and and higher prices because of some issues, right?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: But I do I think there's you look at how the summer market set up with June trading a couple dollars lower than July and August.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: August being able to keep pace with July, um, not to mention the premium and the optimism that's in there.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's some health premium priced into those back end of the summer markets today, Mike.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: Understood.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: And this would be a also a normal seasonal here as we start to move forward.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Is this health concern, is this gonna be somewhat just limited to the back half of the winter and winter, or is this gonna stretch into the summer, spring, kind of like we saw last year, for example.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then you know, not too distant future, the market's gonna ask itself a very tough question of hey, is it gonna show up?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: Because we were absolutely convinced we would see some lower numbers um basically through last winter because of what happened in May or June a year ago, um, and never really showed up.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: So that that'll that'll we'll get down into um there again.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: If we're not seeing some very positive um news and and positive trends as far as the fundamentals go by May, uh we're gonna it's gonna be a struggle.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna start pulling some of that premium out of it also.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Tough time to know how short you are too when supply does start dropping naturally that time of the year, anyways, right?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what else you got for me here this week on this hog market?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: Well, let's hit on uh, you know, we did get to spend some time uh at a conference last week, Mike.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um I know we talked a little bit on the cattle side of things, but I do want to hit it on it for on today's podcast as well.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I I had the opportunity to be a panelist down in a Bloomberg event um and got to interact with a lot of folks, you know, further up the food chain, right?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: So folks uh more in the food category, protein category.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um and there was also a lot of energy folks there, but you know, a few things, a few key learnings I kind of wanted to send down the pipeline here is um there's some really interesting uh folks that are watching some really interesting information as far as consumer price trends, right?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: So these guys are they they claim they don't exactly know who you are, but they know, Mike, um how many children you have, how much pork and beef you bought this week, and when's the last time you you bought pork or beef.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: So they're they're studying that information um very extensively, trying to figure out demand trends, right?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, the big question in everybody's mind today is um what's in store for retail beef prices, and I think you'd have a really difficult f time finding some of those folks that would say that beef prices can take another leg higher as far as on the retail side.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think all of the most optimistic folks I've talked to down there is kind of a sideways event as far as retail prices.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: Not saying cattle prices can't go up, but from the retail side they're gonna have a really hard time pushing the higher prices forward.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh most people would suggest retail beef prices are gonna have to be a little bit lower year over year type of a thing.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: So that obviously help pork out yet.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yes.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um very folks, very optimistic about pork demand down there.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: They like what they're seeing on the beef side from a um competitive protein situation, obviously.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um they had some really nice things to say about um the pork board's uh relatively new approach on marketing, taste what pork can do.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um they just thought they were really hitting on a lot of the key points that are really important right now.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, protein is super important to consumers today.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um as far as the generational change, um, that marketing campaign does a nice job of you know targeting folks, you know, in the younger generation, talking about how it can be you know, a lot of different recipes and things like that, um, showing hey, how can this be additive to your meal?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it doesn't have to be the the giant pork chop in the center of the plate, right?
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um maybe it can be additive.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: They really liked that approach.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, talking about uh quality um and and just a good uh competition to to an expensive beef product today.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: They were they were quite optimistic about that.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: The conference was good, otherwise learn anything new.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: The other thing I thought was super interesting was the the chicken folks there.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um their thoughts are yeah, margins are great, just like you know, the cheaper input prices, uh similar to the hogs today, is um driving some really good returns for the chicken producers.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: But they have a similar situation as hogs.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we have we have a bottleneck as far as the finishing barns go, maybe with some of the sow farms, you know, and and costs are high, interest is pretty high.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's harder to put those fixed assets down.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um what I heard down there was the processing capacity on the poultry side is their limiting factor today.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: And and they think that uh folks will have a hard time pouring capital into that side of the industry for a lot of the same reasons that we're watching on the pig business, um, why the barriers to entry might be a little bit higher.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: So they weren't expecting huge increases in production year over year type of a thing on the poultry side either.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Very interesting.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: You talk about the poultry side, the whole industry is basically controlled by what four companies Tyson, Pilgrim's Pride, which is JBS, uh Sanderson Farms, Purdue Farms.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's a really for the whole industry.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: So a little bit different playing ground there, but very interesting talking point.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: Anything else you got for us here this week?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: I think that'll cover it for today, Michael.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you everyone for uh tuning in today.
• 15:44
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• 15:51
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