Pigs Catching Air

  • March 5, 2001
  • Marc Dupee

Pork contracts, Momentum-5
List leaders, wasted little time setting new contract highs, hitting limit
up within the first 10 minutes of trading. The media was flooded with reports
over the weekend about the worsening foot-and-mouth (also known as
hoof-and-mouth) disease in the United Kingdom and the outbreak of cases in
Ireland and Belgium. Foot-and-mouth disease is a highly contagious disease that
affects hooved animals including pigs, cows and sheep. The disease causes
lesions and results in high morbidity rates in herds. The treatment is to
quarantine and slaughter the animals and to seek to disinfect vehicle tires and
human shoes that can carry the highly contagious disease. The high expected
damage due to one of the world’s most feared livestock diseases is expected to
stimulate exports of US meats.

From the World
Organization For Animal Health Web page, here are the recommendations for
preventing the spread of the disease.

Sanitary prophylaxis

  • Protection of free zones by border animal movement control and
    surveillance
  • Slaughter of infected, recovered, and FMD-susceptible contact animals
  • Disinfection of premises and all infected material (implements, cars,
    clothes, etc.)
  • Destruction of cadavers, litter, and susceptible animal products in the
    infected area
  • Quarantine measures (Code Chapter 2.1.1.)

Energy contracts are rallying on another widely
publicized event: forecasts that the largest storm in 60 years will hit the east
coast as the market strives to build inventory.

April crude oil
(
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and heating oil
(
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PowerRating) have rallied over 3% and the New York
Mercantile Exchange, where the energies are traded, will close early today, at 1
PM ET, due to the storm. 

The Japanese yen
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gapped to a new low but has rallied off its new contract bottom as Prime
Minister Mori narrowly averted being ousted from a no-confidence vote, the
second he has survived. Weakness in the Japanese political system means the
government will be less able to take measures to bring changes that could
improve the economy.