Pork Futures Decline Again

Pork futures prices collapsed again Wednesday, falling the daily allowable limit for the third consecutive session.

Analysts said the market is still wobbling from a government report released Monday showing far more pigs and hogs than had been expected. The nearby hog contracts retreated the 1 1/2 cents-a-pound limit on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and pork bellies were the limit 2 cents lower.

On some other markets, livestock futures slumped lower, coffee was down the limit and Treasury bonds posted near-limit gains.

Pork futures were “a real disaster,” said Philip Stanley, an analyst in Chicago with Thomson McKinnon Securities Inc.

“We really didn’t have that bad a cash market,” he said, “but spillover selling from bellies and continuing reaction to the report” devastated hog futures.

Technical factors were critical, he said, with hogs and bellies repeatedly slipping to levels that triggered more sell orders.

“The technical side of the market looks like a real train wreck,” Stanley said. Stanley and a number of other analysts questioned the reliability of the government’s last two or three quarterly hog census reports.