What Sizzled?

  • June 25, 2001
  • Marc Dupee

Meat contracts continued to simmer with a limit up move and rally on negative
news.

From the Momentum-5
List, pigs continued their recent run. August pork bellies
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set the stage, rallying as traders looked at a record low level of bellies in
frozen storage and drove the contract up the 3.000 daily limit to close at
92.150.
August lean hogs
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up 1.00 at 69.200. Both made good on Off The Blocks
 entries. 

Cattle rallied despite Friday’s bearish cattle-on-feed
report. Live cattle
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closing up .900 to 74.775. August feeder cattle

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their highs, patterns that often indicate additional follow through. 

Blue chip stock index futures were weighed down by their
head and shoulders top patterns while Intel and Cisco held up tech. Dow futures
slipped 134.0 to 10,546.0, S&Ps closed 12.00 lower at 1223.00 and Nasdaq
futures closed up 3.00 at 1756.00.

September T-bonds
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10-year notes
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futures
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odds for a 50 basis point rate cut to 56% for this week’s FOMC meeting. 

Grains packed a one-two-three punch with wheat, corn, and soybeans registering
on the Implosion-5 List
or the
New 10-Day Low List. All three closed down but wheat and corn closed at new
contract lows, down 5 1/4 and 2 3/4, respectively. 

In the softs and fibers although large traders did clean
out some of their short positions, the most recent Commitment of Traders report
still showed a big net short position, which was in part responsible for today’s
short-covering rally. July cotton
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higher in its biggest rally of the year, closing up 12%, once traders caught
wind that some holders of long positions would take delivery of the
physical.