Hogs Fall Most in Four Months on Rising Pork Supply; Cattle Drop

Hog futures fell the most in four months on speculation that supplies of U.S. pork are outpacing demand. Cattle prices declined.

Wholesale pork slumped 0.5 percent to 83.05 cents a pound yesterday, the lowest since Jan. 2, U.S. Department of Agriculture data show. Meatpackers processed 1.288 million hogs in the first three days of this week, up 1.3 percent from the same period a year earlier, government data show.

“You have some more pigs coming to the market,” Christian Mayer, a market adviser at Northstar Commodity Investments Co. in Minneapolis, said in a telephone interview. “I don’t think demand is quite strong enough to make up for that.”

Hog futures for February settlement slumped 2.5 percent to close at 84.2 cents a pound at 1 p.m. on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. That marks the biggest drop for a most-active contract since Sept. 6.

Cattle futures for February delivery slid 0.8 percent to settle at $1.3155 a pound on the CME. Last week, prices slipped 0.5 percent, the first drop since Nov. 30.

Feeder-cattle futures for March settlement retreated 0.8 percent to $1.53775 a pound in Chicago.

To contact the reporter on this story: Elizabeth Campbell in Chicago at ecampbell14@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steve Stroth at sstroth@bloomberg.net