Lean hog futures follow up Thanksgiving Holiday with triple digit rally on Black Friday, futures are as much as $1.87 higher at midday. The USDA released their weekly export sales data to reveal that for the week ending 11/21 there were 50,465 MT sold. That comes as a 44.4% decrease over last week, but pushes the total commits to 1.674 MMT, which is 43.7% ahead of last year’s pace. With 6 weeks still left in the year to add to the accumulated net sales, pork commitments are already the highest they’ve ever been for a single year. The accumulated shipments according to the report are now at1.415 MMT which is also a record on the data available with still more weeks to add to it as well. The 11/25 CME Lean Hog Index was $57.88 after a 30 cent decrease. The USDA pork carcass cutout value was again lower, at $79.80 following a $2.28 drop. The pork belly primals were marked at $94.87, after a $14.57 per hundredweight drop. USDA’s national average base hog price for 11/27 was $42.80, for a 35 cent gain. USDA estimates FI hog slaughter for the shortened week to be 1.465 million head through Wednesday.

--provided by Brugler Marketing & Management