Hog futures rose for a second straight day on speculation that U.S. pork demand is outpacing the supply of animals to slaughterhouses. Cattle fell.
Wholesale pork rose 0.5 percent yesterday to 90.94 cents a pound, U.S. Department of Agriculture data show. Meatpackers processed 2.12 million hogs last week, 6.7 percent fewer than a year earlier. Farmers have slashed hog herds after high feed costs and the recession spurred losses in 2008 and 2009.
Wholesale pork “is still holding in there,” said Tom Cawthorne, the director of hog marketing at R.J. O’Brien & Associates in Chicago. “We’re hearing that next week the numbers are going to be tight, and the packer is still going to want to put together a big kill because he has good margins.”
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