Lean hogs dropped another 32 to 62 cents on Thursday. April futures ended the session 7 cents higher at $76.37. Pork cutout futures closed the other way, with gains of 20 to 40 cents, save for a $0.97 drop in Feb. The 1/26 CME Lean Hog Index was up another 72 cents to $66.95. USDA’s National Average Base Hog price was quoted at $57.01 in the AM update, up by 26 cents. The National Pork Carcass Cutout value was up $2.38 this afternoon to $83.49. The weekly Export Sales data showed 52,855 MT of pork booked on the week ending 1/21. That was the largest since October, and was just the 6^th weekly sale above 50k MT since 2020 began. USDA estimates the weekly hog slaughter through Thursday at 1.922m head. That is 1,000 head above last week’s pace but trails the same week last year by 56,000 head.

--- provided by Brugler Marketing & Management