Pork Futures: Hogs Higher
CHICAGO - Chicago Mercantile Exchange lean hogs closed higher Wednesday on short covering, fund buying and corn's price run-up. Also, June/July and June/August forward spreaders clashed with longs that rolled out of spot June into July and August.Pork bellies posted sizable gains, live cattle ended mostly flat to higher and feeder cattle settled moderately higher.
Lean hogs moved up on the open spurred by short covering and Tuesday's pork cutout price snapback. Initial mostly steady to higher cash hog quotes and thoughts that Tuesday's board sell-off was overdone hastened board gains.
Some traders also pointed to end-of-month "window dressing" on the part of a few market participants as a source of Wednesday's rally.
Funds flexed their buying muscles after July and August rolled through key resistance targets and tripped buy stops. And speculative hog buyers purchased deferred contracts despite Chicago Board of Trade corn's earlier directionless trading.