Pork futures waffled at the start as traders wrestled with bearish fundamental influences versus October and December's severely oversold chart conditions.

However, futures adopted a more bearish posture after market participants digested last Friday's pork cut out fall. Additional negative hog market ingredients included deteriorating calculated packer profit margins and USDA's monthly cold storage total pork and ham numbers on Friday.

What's more, steady to lower cash hog bids, particularly at direct hog markets, weighed on futures.

By the same token, traders who bought breaks were attracted to technically-oversold October and December contracts. And, both contracts's lightly bullish discounts to the exchange's hog index attracted down-side speculative shoppers.

Cash hog price weakness is expected to spillover into Tuesday which could keep spot-month hog buying at a minimum. Also, huge hog kills at higher weights tilt in favor of bearish traders.