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By Tom Polansek
CHICAGO, March 23 (Reuters) – Chicago Mercantile Exchange lean hog futures crumbled to new life-of-contract lows on Thursday, before finishing mixed, on concerns about poor demand for U.S. pork, analysts said.
The market has tanked since last week, with additional pressure stemming from weak cash prices and larger-than-expected supplies of hogs. The front-month contract LHc1 is down 13% since March 10.
“Clearly I think there’s some major demand concerns,” said Doug Houghton, an analyst for Brock Associates.
The sell-off has been overdone and the market could be ripe for a technical rebound, though demand concerns remain, traders said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said ham cutout values eased 7 cents to $69.94 per hundredweight (cwt), after a steep drop last week. Bellies jumped $2.53 to $84.64 per cwt, while the carcass cutout rose 44 cents to $80.30 per cwt.
Frozen U.S. pork supplies at the end of February were up 9% from last year, the USDA said separately in a monthly Cold Storage report. Total ham supplies were up 1%, while stocks of pork bellies were up 42% from last year.
Total pounds of beef in freezers, meanwhile, were down 6% from last year, the USDA said.
In the beef markets, CME April live cattle LCJ3 settled down 0.150 cent at 162.150 cents per pound. April feeder cattle FCJ3 finished up 0.625 cent at 195.000 cents per pound.
(Reporting by Tom Polansek; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)
((Thomas.Polansek@thomsonreuters.com; https://twitter.com/tpolansek))
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
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