What’s Up, What’s Down: Mixed Close for Meat Futures

Comments for Thursday February 19, 2009

Looking Ahead to Today By Reflecting back at Wednesday’s price action

MEATS:

Mixed close yesterday for pork bellies while lower closes for live and feeder cattle along with lean hogs. New contract lows for the April cattle contract ending its bottoming formation while getting a sell signal for the feeder cattle. Hogs closed lower ending my buy signal but still forming a potential bottoming formation. Bellies are in a nice down channel in a very bearish looking market. Tomorrow (February 20), the USDA will release the monthly Cattle-On-Feed Report, which will have a significant fundamental impact on cattle and feeder futures over the next several weeks.

Pork Bellies Futures Chart

See the balance of my morning comments, including the Metals, Softs, Energies and Grains, at my website. For my complete coverage, visit my commentary page at www.markethead.com.

Rick Alexander has been a broker and analyst in the futures business for over thirty years. He is a Vice-President for Sales and Trading at the Zaner Group (www.zaner.com) a Chicago-based futures brokerage firm. If you would like a free booklet explaining the charts mentioned above, email Rick at ralexander@zaner.com.